For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, “It might have been.” – John Greenleaf Whittier

Late again – sorry about that.  However it is IEP season, so I’m a super crazy busy lately.  And actually it kind of ties into the whole concept of it might have been.  IEP’s are all about helping students reach their fullest potential, and one of the saddest things we do as educators is think about “It might have been,” when we watch students fail.

I think we all have so many things we could accomplish, and yet we don’t.  Why we don’t (and I include me in that we) is the biggest mystery.  I have theories.  Well I have a theory, and that is fear.  We don’t try because we’re afraid to fail.  Now logically, I don’t get that because if you fail, then you dust yourself off and try again.  That’s logically thinking.  In reality, I get it.

I am deathly afraid of failing.  I worry constantly what people may think of me if I try and I fail. Well honestly, most people probably won’t even care.  I’m not really that important to other people in the grand scheme of things.  No, that’s not me putting myself down, that’s truth.  I’m important to me, and you’re important to you.  We care about and focus on our immediate family and friends, and what other people do, it’s not that important to us.  So that being said, if you try and fail, people may feel bad for you because you didn’t succeed, but they’re not going to think less of you.

Think about something you want to do.  Maybe you want to run the Boston Marathon.  Well God love you, that’s awesome.  Why aren’t you training?  Why are you talking yourself out of it?  Because you’re afraid you can’t do it?  So what.  Plenty of people can’t run a marathon. Who cares? Nobody’s going to say “Oh wow, you failed,” but I bet you they’d be saying “Hey, great job!” if you tried.  I’m done with the it might have been phase of life.  I’m moving on to the I can do it phase, and so should you.