Gratitude - what goes around, comes around

FI have to admit that i have left this journal be and really haven't dedicated the time i wanted to originally. I tried using it for my Lit. Review, but doing a standard table and grouping topics, ended-up being the best approach. Nonetheless, i still believe in sharing experiences and this week has been one full of gratitute. 

I try to be thankful for the gifts i have in my life - both professional and personal. But this week has been a special one for me because i have been inundated with thankful comments and communications from my students.

I will admit that i do not do anything thinking of what i'll get out of it. If i think a connection should be done between people, i do it. If a person's hard work deserves recognition, i will do my best to highlight that person's achievements. So when my students have shared with me their thanks for things "i just do" i cannot help but smile and remind them i'm not doing anything special. 

While i have chosen to follow higher education because it gives me allowances that the K-12 system did not, in the area of professional growth, i never chose this path because i thought i was going to be rich, famous or anything like it. I did it because i believed in helping people achieve more than me, and guide them in the process of becoming the best they could be. I am thankful for the opportunity some people have given me in my academic development, as well as professional growth. Therefore, i cannot see a better way of paying that forward than to lend a similar helping hand to my students. 

I tell my students that there is no thanks needed - because there isn't - yet they do. So I guess this is my way of doing the same, even though i know those who helped me did so without wanting one. This is where i thank all those that helped me get where i am, and for those that will help me in the future. As my students, I appreciate the strength and courage it took to see something in me that i may have not seen, and make sure i did something about it. Thank you for the trust that i would do good in the future and, that the work and time spent on me would produce value. 

The gratitude my students have shared with me should not stay with me - i do not deserve it, as i did nothing special. My student's gratitude is to those that helped me, a single person, who now is trying to pay-it-forward by doing to others, what was done to him.