I Am....A Teacher

   I Am....A Teacher

    Experience, the older you get (hopefully) the more you have. Life, career, relationships, health (both mental and physical), good or bad, it all accumulates. It's what you do with it that matters. 

   I choose to try to impart as much of myself on the world around me as I possibly and reasonably can, because there is only one Me, and good or bad, and once I am gone, poof, I am gone. I am not a scholar, I am not a sage or mystical monk living in a cave on a mountain top, I am Me. 

   I am frantic, I am insecure, I am demanding, I am caring and loving, I am many things to many people (including myself), and I want to be remembered by those around me when I am gone. Not a statue or any ego-maniacal thing like that, but maybe just a "remember when Don said this....", simple. And I can do this by teaching what I do and don't know to those around me. Showing and telling how to do or not do something, spreading my limited experience to those willing to listen, teaching them what and who I am. Making my lineage known by teaching about myself and what I did in my limited time on this earth. 

   Teaching for me is both surprisingly easy and monumentally hard. It is a paradox of thoughts trying to dominate each other, both the wrong and right way of expression fighting to be heard. I constantly ask myself, "self, is this truly what you are trying to say, are you helping or hindering?". Fifty one years of experience and knowledge trying to funnel itself through my brain stem and out my mouth. Sometimes it is gibberish, sometimes it is actually what I wanted to get across, so caution is vital. But I can't let caution prevent me from being Me. 

   Teaching is hard, but priceless and absolutely necessary to me.