Change Your Focus, Change Your Life

“Diana Prince: Men made a world where standing together is impossible.
Bruce Wayne: Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to.” (Source)

Today was a good day. I would like to attribute that to my day off on Wednesday which gave me much needed rest and relaxation. Or maybe I can attribute my good spirits and high patience levels to knowing my week long break awaited at the the clock strike of 2:20.

I think, though, that yesterday’s revelation played a large part.  I needed the reminder to love those around me while they are broken. This does not mean that I accepted all of the terrible behaviors I encountered from both children and adults. This simply implies that my current situation may never change. People may never live up to the idea of them I formed in my mind, and they deserve my love anyway. The same way I deserve theirs.

Either way, my focus shifted today. I became painfully aware that I spend much of my time fighting the wrong enemy. I obsess over details that do not align with the picture I have in my mind, and I set about to make changes.

Change is good. That I believe but not at the expense of the present. Sometimes our acceptance of our current state as is creates the change we so desire.

As I mull over the our nation, our students, our children, I often wonder if we can ever come together? We have been taught to eat, hustle, sleep, repeat. We learn to build empires. We learn to set lofty goals and smash through them. All of these ideas are great!

Yet, once in a while, they create a selfishness, and we begin to distance ourselves from those who do not share our views, or opinions, or specific perspectives.

Tonight I watched Batman vs. Superman, and I spent a large portion of the movie waiting for them to figure it out. I eagerly anticipated the moment they would realize they were fighting the wrong enemy. They needed to come together to uncover the real bad guys and destroy them.

How often is this the case with us?  How often do we debate trivialities that affect us only a little?  We lose friends over Facebook posts and Instagram memes of dialogues created by other people. We unfollow. We block. We stop speaking because we are offended by views we cannot understand from our limited perspectives.

Both sides of most issues hold some truth but the rest is far-stretching, deep-seeded opinions. Opinions formed by life’s trials, by upbringing, by personal experience. Life forced biased realities. Only through open minds and open hearts can we begin conversations to tear down the walls we built ourselves.

My favorite part of the movie appeared when Superman told Batman he needed to save Martha. In an instant, Batman stopped in his tracks. Who is Martha? How do you know Martha? He demanded an explanation. How in the world could Superman know the name of Batman’s mother? The two superheroes stood more alike than different.

We must do the same in our day to day affairs. We must stop beating up one another and together conquer the real villains.

I saw my students differently today. They were not a project or a task to complete.  I instead recognized that we are all just trying to save Martha – not always successful but better together.

If bit by bit, we do the same as a country and as individuals how different the world becomes. We recognize we share our ordinaries and put them together to build extraordinaries. Lives everywhere transform one by one.

We take the advice of Batman. We fight. We betray. We rebuild.

We have to…We have no other options.

So as we move forward, I challenge each of you to shift your focus. Find someone else’s Martha. Find what makes you the same. Talk through what makes you different. Use them both – similarities and differences – to change lives.

Yours and those in the world which surrounds you.

…

What are some ways you have changed your focus?

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