This summer is drawing to a close way faster than I would like, and while I am excited about a new school year, I am looking back on an amazing summer! One thing I have noticed as a history teacher and an avid news watcher is that a lot of bad stuff happens and there isn’t much you can do to truly stop it! I think what we can do is notice all the good that exists all around us! This doesn’t make the news, but I think it is much more important than all of the bad things in the world! This summer I have been reintroduced to the outdoor world that I had not spent much time enjoying during my adult life! I have notice some things that truly amaze me! In camping, hiking and canoeing, we have left our tent, supplies etc. for many hours at a time unattended! We have left our cars in the middle of the boondocks! We have left our canoe unchained while we retrieve our cars! Not one thing has been damaged or stolen or even disturbed! Where else can you still leave your doors unlocked and feel perfectly safe! I have also been amazed at the offers of people to help or provide information! As we stood with our canoe in knee deep rapids, a man drove up to the river and offed to help! I truly believe he was going to get out and wade into the river, and even though we didn’t need the assistance, the offer still amazed me! When we flipped our canoe, twice, we lost 2 paddles, 4 Shoes, a diet coke, and a flotation cushion! After we recovered our canoe, we found our paddles, shoes, diet coke, and flotation cushion all placed on rocks so we could not miss them! We picked up all lost items, which had been left by a group of tubers who were going down the river as we crashed! As we passed them latter they were so happy for us that we found our items and that they had helped us out! I could point out many other great examples of all the goodness that I have seen this summer, but I will leave it with this: the next time you think the world is falling apart and that everything is bad, turn off the computer and the TV and look around! It did me so much good and makes me optimistic that we can over come all the hardships that this world has to offer if we simply find all the good around us and try to be that good ourselves! P.S. If you are one of my friends who has chosen a life of crime, please ignore everything I have said in this post!! I always lock everything up and my car and canoe aren’t worth stealing!!!!:)
2015-09-09