Once upon a time, an elementary school teacher gave an exercise to her students. She asked them to write the names of all students and note down the nicest things about their friends. The pupils did as instructed and left for home forgetting about the assignment. Two days later, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. Next day, she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. “Really?” she heard whispers; “I never knew that meant anything to anyone!” “I didn’t know others liked me so much!” No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on. Several years later, one of the students was killed on the battlefield and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen such a handsome and mature serviceman in a military coffin before. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin in the packed church. As she stood there, one of the soldiers came up to her and asked, “Were you Mark’s Maths teacher?” He continued when she nodded yes, “Mark talked a lot about you.” After the funeral, Mark’s former classmates went together for a lunch. Mark’s parents waited to talk to his teacher. “We want to show you something,” his father said showing a billfold, of two worn pieces of notebook that had been obviously taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.” One by one, all the classmates gathered around the teacher and mentioned how carefully they had treasured their papers. That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. There are so many people with and around us that we forget most of the times to express our gratitude towards them. We hardly remember the fragility of life, how uncertain it is. We overlook the fact that life will end one day and yet without knowing which one day that will be, we keep on postponing the act of appreciating others. Telling people that they are special won’t lead to any worldly gain, but it would definitely result in a lot of emotional satisfaction. We don’t express ourselves fearing what other people will think about us. There are times when we feel like crying or dancing or expressing our joy and sorrow, but we don’t, just fearing people. Many a times we admire people and are thankful to them for the little good things they have ever said or done to us however we don’t tell them. A few things do leave unsaid in hustle-bustle of life, these unexpressed things don’t cause us any loss, but only a few words can create magic. Telling people that you love and care for them, that they are special, would upshot in a little more respect for you and them too. The gift of life is precious but it is fragile too. The power to make it beautiful for us and others as well lies in us. “There should be no shame in honesty,” they say. And that’s the reason we all must learn to honestly tell people what we feel about them, no matter if it is a catharsis, like this one.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:52:08 +0000
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