Plenty

Today's Thought, while not originally mine, certainly struck a chord with my own gardening experience. Back home in Johnsburg my dad and I would stock our garden full of tomatoes, potatoes, beans and even peas every spring. And every year we would have a bounty of plenty come harvest time. So much so that there was no way our family would be able to eat all the produce. So, invariably around late July, I would peddle our free veggies to the neighbors. Every year it was this way. The hope of spring would eventually give away to an inordinate amount of produce.

What is your plenty? My garden is very symbolic of our very lives. You see, Warren Buffet once said that we have won the Ovarian Lottery. Simply by being born in this country, with everything we have, we have been blessed and lucky beyond measure.

Keeping with this season of thanksgiving, take some time to think about what you have plenty of, what you have so much of that you can't help but give it away. I think we all have those things that we enter into so excitedly and innocently, only to be overwhelmed by the fruits of our labor. Maybe you can relate to this, except you've never thought to give your excess away. I would encourage you to do so. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, even a child can sustain a village, giving of him or herself. What is your plenty?

Thanks

I have to say I have no idea who John Green is. However, I do enjoy his sentiment in today's Thought. In all the things that I'm thankful for, near the top of the list has to be the educational system providing for our country. Yes, I think we all realize that there are issues that must be addressed. Within this system (or maybe in spite of it), education at the local levels is amazing. How many others out there continue to hold pride for the high school they graduated from year earlier (Go Rebels!)? Maybe I'm a bit biased as I'm studying to be a teacher, but I for one am thankful that I don't live in a country (completely) filled with stupid people.

What are you thankful for? Moreover, are you thankful just this one week out of the year? Or do you find ways to express thanks throughout the year? Maybe you're thankful for a set of parents who have steered you through life. Or perhaps it's a teacher who showed you how to make a career doing what you love. No matter who or what you are thankful for, show that you are thankful in your words and actions. Yes, for sure, do so this week. But don't stop there. Continue to show your thanks throughout the year.

Humility

Today's Thought is courtesy of Calvin and his incessant bully, Moe. I'd like to look at Calvin's last word in this strip: Taunt. For better or for worse, the first thing I think of when I see that word is the National Football League and the players need to taunt and tease the opposing teams. When you taunt, you are attempting to assert your dominance or why someone should be worried about messing with you. Is this really what we want to be doing?

What about humility? What if it didn't matter what we said, rather what we do is what matters? Now I'm not saying let's eliminate all of this grandstanding that at times can be quite entertaining and exhilarating. Rather, let's never forget to be humble individuals. It doesn't matter what we say. What matters is what we do and how we do it.

Targets

What can I say, I'm a teacher at heart. The core question that every lesson planning session begins with is "What do I want my students to learn?" What's the target?

We all have something we are aiming for. Cheesy classroom posters notwithstanding (Shoot for the moon, at least you'll land among the stars!), there's always that end goal, that target that we want to achieve. What is your target?

No matter what your target is, don't hesitate in following it. No matter how crazy, how out there your dream and target seems, just go for it. Just like opening gifts, the journey to your target will bring many surprises-some pleasant, some not so pleasant-to your life. Some of my best targets haven't led me to where I thought I wanted to go. I think my best targets led me to a place that I wasn't necessarily expecting to be but rather the exact place I needed to be. What's your target?

Insane

I can't remember if I've use this Thought before. But, it is a good one, so I figure there is no harm in using it again. Today in class, we started a unit on electrical wiring. The thing with wiring is that it's a lot like a puzzle. It's just a matter of getting all the pieces in the right spot. While struggling to figure out the puzzle, I kept catching myself trying to make it work by putting old pieces in the same spots. You can imagine, this didn't work. I was being quite insane.

Have you ever been insane? And if so, what can we do about it? I find that if just step away, take a break then come back later my problems seem much easier to solve. What are some of your favorite strategies?

Evolution

Today's Thought comes from that wonderful beast known as the internet. I think this image of the ape beginning to walk is fairly synonymous with the idea of evolution. Today's post is not about how man came to be. Instead, it about this idea of evolution in our own, personal lives. Looking back at my own life, my career aspirations have evolved considerably. First, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Due to my intense enjoyment of fishing, I wanted to manage the fisheries I used. However, I gradually discovered my love of teaching and sought to make a career teaching agriculture.

How have you, in your own life, evolved? Perhaps your personal worldview has evolved. Like me, maybe your career aspirations have changed considerably. No matter what has evolved, I daresay each and every one of us can identify some form of evolution in our own lives. What has your evolution meant for you? We should all strive to make positive evolutions in our lives. Without positive change, what are we doing? Regressing, or even worse, stagnating? Don't stop evolving.

Beyond

As I sit watching the last few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, I have to come back to this Thought. I've used Barney Stinson's famous saying before in a post, but I wanted to come back to it today. You see, tonight is one of the famous Cup Games between FarmHouse Fraternity and Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity. As a member of FarmHouse, I have been getting excited about this for the whole week.

You see, in order for us to be successful, we have to move beyond the ordinary. What is this beyond? Some say it's extraordinary. Stinson would call it legendary. No matter what you call it, it is the same idea.
 Have you ever been beyond ordinary? I think everyone has at least one of those stories how it just seemed like everything clicked. Perhaps it was in a competition. In my own life, I've felt that experience while playing piano, while acting and even while teaching. For each person, moving beyond the ordinary, to the legendary, means something different.

In order to succeed, must stop being ordinary. No matter the effort required, we must go beyond. In order to succeed, we must be legendary.