I have been thinking a lot lately about people who inspire me. There are so many it is hard to pin it down to a few. What is it about these people's qualities that inspires me? There are a few things that I think contribute to who inspires who. Different people inspire different people, but there are some people that inspire many (famous people like Martin Luther King). Here are a few foundational ideas behind people who inspire us:
1. People whose strengths are the areas where we are weak. I admire people who display qualities with ease with which I am not naturally gifted. For example, my principal, Marsha, is very eloquent in speaking. She displays confidence even when she is shaking in her shoes and she shows love even when she has to have a tough conversation with a parent, student, or staff member. While I am very good at speaking with kids, I stumble over my words sometimes when talking to adults or speaking in front of groups of adults. I also admire our assistant principals, Amber and Chris, who know how to discipline kids when needed with tact and fairness. I hate it when I have to discipline my own kids and I would much rather avoid discipline in any form! Athletes and musicians would also fall into this category. We spend a lot of money on sports events and concerts to go watch people who inspire us.
2. People who have overcome great suffering or hardship. We all love a good human survival story, whether it involves abuse, physical disabilities, terminal illnesses, cancer, wrongful imprisonment, or war veterans. We often have no idea how much our war veterans truly suffer mentally or physically while serving in a war zone. My nephew Adam was a marine who served in Afganistan and witnessed an IED blow up his vehicle and dismember his friend.
3. People who are heroes. "Sully," the pilot who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River and saved an entire plane load of people is one recent example. Another example is those who serve in our nation's military. We often do not even know to what extent they went to in order to secure our freedom or the freedom of others. My hope is that we each have a personal hero in our own lives, whether it is a parent who raised us well, or someone who actually put their life on the line for us, or reached out to us when we were totally sinking. One of my heroes is my high school guidance counselor who was there to listen when I was in 10th grade.
4. People who quietly work behind the scenes to make important things happen. While most of us crave recognition, there are those who day after day just do their job without complaining and without seeking promotion or reward, often doing work others do not want to do. Those people inspire me. My co-workers Rose and Laurie do this every day. It is this last category that I hope that I would be accused of inspiring someone, or maybe overcoming hardship. I have learned a lot and I would rather focus on who inspires me than who I am inspiring, but I think that one of life's goals for each of us SHOULD be to want to inspire someone in some capacity. It may be only one person, but that is enough.
