A message I just sent my old English teacher.
I'm not really sure how to start this, so I guess the best way is the direct way.
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
As cliché as this sounds I feel it is very important for me to let you know how much you've influenced my life. Your understanding, compassion, and wisdom has carried with me since those few brief moments I spent in your classroom. I can say that without a doubt that you've been one of the most influential people in my life.
You taught me a few things for which I'm eternally grateful. First you taught me what compassion was; not just in a standard sense, but in a fully and wholly caring and understanding way. The ease at which you could be approached and how much you truly cared was something I had never really experienced before.
The second thing that still rings in my ears is "live in the moment". It took me a long time to understand what you meant by that, and even longer to be able to spend even part of my life in such a state and it continues to be an important theme in my life.
This may or may not go back to the compassion issue, but the other thing you taught me was how to think about someone else's problems with the combined aspects of ones own experiences and the other persons situation, and providing advice that was not only empathetic but at the same time truthful, even if it wasn't what they wanted to hear.
All of these add up to a concept you first introduced me to, the difference between being human and Human.
Thanks for taking the time to treat me like a Human when I was very much a child. Thank you for showing me there's more to life than shadows on a wall. Thank you ever so much for caring. It means the world to me.
~James
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
As cliché as this sounds I feel it is very important for me to let you know how much you've influenced my life. Your understanding, compassion, and wisdom has carried with me since those few brief moments I spent in your classroom. I can say that without a doubt that you've been one of the most influential people in my life.
You taught me a few things for which I'm eternally grateful. First you taught me what compassion was; not just in a standard sense, but in a fully and wholly caring and understanding way. The ease at which you could be approached and how much you truly cared was something I had never really experienced before.
The second thing that still rings in my ears is "live in the moment". It took me a long time to understand what you meant by that, and even longer to be able to spend even part of my life in such a state and it continues to be an important theme in my life.
This may or may not go back to the compassion issue, but the other thing you taught me was how to think about someone else's problems with the combined aspects of ones own experiences and the other persons situation, and providing advice that was not only empathetic but at the same time truthful, even if it wasn't what they wanted to hear.
All of these add up to a concept you first introduced me to, the difference between being human and Human.
Thanks for taking the time to treat me like a Human when I was very much a child. Thank you for showing me there's more to life than shadows on a wall. Thank you ever so much for caring. It means the world to me.
~James