The Honor of My Life

As we go on, we remember, all the times we, had together...

I remember watching Barack Obama give his farewell speech in Chicago in 2016. It was that time when everyone was losing their minds about Donald Trump (some things never change) and Obama was summing up his career and legacy. He closed with the line “it was the honor of my life to be your President.” That phrase carried a ton of weight with me. Purpose and more frequently, the pursuit of purpose is the most important driving factor for me in my life, so being able to say something was “the honor of my life” seemed like a worthy goal.

Ironically, (or not ironically I don’t know, that’s not an area of English I spend much time with) 2016 also happened to be a very transformative year for me. It was at some point during that year, I was sitting in an office meeting where a room full of people with fancy degrees and experience were frothing at the mouth about how star spangled awesome it was that Jeff Bezos was recently named the richest man in history. The day-to-day operations of this magazine were to send spam emails to people whose email addresses they purchased and write press releases about which chimney cleaning company made a new website. But it’s that meeting that will stick in my brain forever. My only contribution to the greater society was the shit that I flushed down the toilet every day. There was no honor there, there was no purpose. I was stealing oxygen.

Roughly nine years later, I’m sitting here on May 16th which is the last day for graduating seniors at my school. All morning, I have received messages and visits and gifts and notes from students that crossed my path throughout their career at this school. Each one an individual with their own hopes and dreams and struggles.

We get force fed all the bad things from the world; why every other person is your enemy, why this minority or this group wants to take things from you, retreat to your small group to keep you safe, stockpile your money and stuff in a hole because everyone else is coming for you.

These kids serve as such a huge middle finger to all of that garbage.

These kids don’t look like me, I don’t look like them, some don’t even speak the same language as me. But the universal kindness and respect we share with each other reaffirms how much I reject the notion of an us vs. them world. We are all responsible for the world in which we live, fighting for a better world in any small way is the mark of a person worth the oxygen they breathe. Luckily that’s me now.

Is the day-to-day grind of teaching always so life affirming? Hell no. We spent almost two months without internet this year. I have been hit, confiscated weapons, seen teachers assault students (none of this at my current school, my current school rules) been told to “get fucked” and every other variation of that you can think of. It happens. Not every kid is worth your effort but damn near 98% of them are.

I’m not saying that I’m immune from the cynicism of middle age. Kids are on their phone too much, they say things like “no cap” and they make dumb decisions. But shockingly enough, I wasn’t perfect at that age either. These kids provide an antidote to cynicism because once we actually get out there and live in the real world and care about each other and things that matter, we see that most people, no matter what age, what background, what language they speak, are good. Being taught that lesson every year by group after group of excellent young people is the honor of my life.