I had my eyes closed for a
minute and I could feel the energy of the room, hundreds of people thinking about
other’s wishes and hoping they’d come true.
How powerful can our thoughts
be? What if we decided to unite our power and wish for a brighter future for
all humanity?
Today I attended the most
inspiring conference I’ve had in a long time: “The Power of Yet, the Tyranny of
Now” with Lee Watanabe-Crockett.
As educators and world
citizens in general, we feel rushed, we feel the urgency of now, when what we
should be doing is pausing, that way we could have a split screen vision:
taking the now and the near future into account, both at the same time.
Two images got imprinted in
my head, as well as the stories connected to them: a persimmons tree and a motorcycle
race. The second one attached to the split screen vision idea, where you have
to act in the moment and be ready for what is coming. The tree image made me
think on how we invest all of our energy in today and don’t leave anything for
the future. How we think it’s a good idea to pick all the fruit instead of
leaving something for the birds to eat or allow nature complete its life cycle.
So, I ask myself, how can we
direct our teaching and efforts to the ‘now’ and make it so powerful that it
transcends into the future?
I suppose the answer is
obvious and way too simple to answer, whatever we plant in our students now, will
grow in the future; the words we choose now, will define them in the future;
whatever tools we give them now, will give them access to their future goals
and motivations. Whatever possibilities we see now, will shape our ideas, and
their ideas as a result.
We have to assume our
responsibility as mindful leaders by showing our students how to connect with
others and by building a community of learners. Imagine if we had our students
close their eyes and fill their minds with good thoughts for others, how bright
would our future be?
