1. Our brains are rather remarkable. We can learn new facts and hopefully remember them for a lifetime. But our brains are also like hard drives on computers. You want to keep them running and do not want to pollute them with unnecessary baggage. If you only spend your days playing computer games and surfing through Twitter feeds, you’re not using that hard drive to its full capacity. It was designed for much more than that!
2. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean that you should. Taste your words before you spit them out. If you're not sure about whether you should say something, you may want to hold off on speaking until your brain has had a moment to catch up with your mouth.
3. Take time in life not only to ask others questions, but also ask yourself questions. Am I the person I want to be?
4. People who are bored are boring. If you go around others saying, "This is so boring,” then consider the fact that others might think you’re the boring one.
5. School is not a baby-sitting facility. It’s not the food court at the mall. It’s not the field at the park. School is where young people learn the values of partnership, commitment, respect, compassion, tolerance, and perseverance. It’s where young people start considering what they can do now to make their futures stronger. Those using school as only a social hangout fail to recognize these two points: 1) Your endless (grammatically incorrect) conversations about how “school ain't important and don’t matter” are not going to matter to anyone worth having a real conversation with; 2) If your text messages and posts on social media are the only work you do, how are you going to list “work experience” when you are applying for a job that requires real work?
6. Happy people don’t often feel the need to pass judgment. Why? They are content with themselves, so the opinions, feelings, and actions of others should not impact them. What type of people pass judgment? I’ll let you decide that. (Wouldn't life be awesome if someone stood on sidewalks handing out "Happy Meals" to unpleasant people?)
7. “I don’t care” is what people say when they really do care but have too much pride or shame to admit it.
8. We all need to have others whom we can look up to as life gets more difficult. Pick those people carefully though. Not everyone deserves your admiration.
9. You have something you’re good at. If it’s reading, drawing, singing, playing an instrument, or taking part in a sport, then wonderful! But it might be that you’re good at listening, understanding, being patient, and caring about others. Guess what? These are just as important (if not more so). You don’t need to be a star basketball player right now to have a future. In fact, statistically speaking, very few people make it to the NBA or WNBA. So have a back-up plan, and use your other, less-talked-about (but valuable) skills.
10. Procrastination only makes your life more complicated. We wait until the last moment to do or say what’s most important. That’s why I intentionally saved this “fact of life” for last. In the moment, procrastination seems like a good idea. You can keep side-stepping all the items on your “to-do list” until you have no choice but to do them. Think long-term though. Is that how you want to live? Do you want to avoid all of life’s big moments until you are ultimately forced into participating in them?! If you're always trying to fight the tide, how are you ever going to ride the wave?
Speaking of procrastination, you should probably make sure that you start on your next MCAS packet before Wednesday night! Now, please go on Edmodo, and--in your small group--tell me one of your own "facts of life." Also, I hope that you've seen the post about Bill Nye's middle name! Neat, huh?!
-Ms. Sanford