{"id":2286,"date":"2023-09-01T18:21:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T15:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soaringwords.dops.digital\/?p=2286"},"modified":"2023-09-01T18:21:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T15:21:18","slug":"looking-for-the-teachers-edition-textbook-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/looking-for-the-teachers-edition-textbook-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for the Teacher\u2019s Edition Textbook \u2026 For Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s back-to-school season and I\u2019m getting ever so nostalgic. Whenever I duck into the Staples store in my neighborhood, I\u2019m swept up with positive flashbacks from my childhood back-to-school excursions. My mom was wonderfully supportive, always encouraging my love of learning. For this annual rite of passage, we\u2019d go to the local stationery store in town where she allowed me to spend a lot of time carefully selecting brand new supplies for the upcoming school year. I slowly walked through each aisle, mesmerized by the plethora of book covers for all my textbooks, two-pocket folders (those were my favorite) where homework assignments lived, and soft-cover, spiral, lined notebooks, one for each subject. Back at the kitchen table, I\u2019d spend hours carefully decorating the supplies, festooning them with my name in bubble letters (or bubble letters script when I felt emboldened). Once I was finished, I stashed all the new items in my backpack and patiently waited for that first day of school. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Recently, I learned that the teachers used to have a special teacher\u2019s edition of all the textbooks we were assigned. In today\u2019s age of instant answers to any question courtesy of Google, Wikipedia, and AI, a printed Teacher\u2019s Edition is a fascinating concept. This got me considering a thought experiment. <\/span><\/p>\n

What if you were given the teacher\u2019s edition textbook for <\/span>your<\/span><\/i> life? In this comprehensive resource, you could find <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> the answers to each experience, challenge, or decision for your life. Especially in the tender years of childhood when there\u2019s such a strong desire to conform and fit in, it\u2019s easy to see how people would want to be given an instruction manual with all of the answers already delineated. Would you want that ability or do you prefer to learn and grow, stumbling and moving forward along the way?<\/span><\/p>\n

Soren Kierkegaard said, \u201cLife can only be understood by looking backward; but it must be lived looking forward.\u201d I believe if I had access to all the answers, it would rob me of a sense of discovery, wonder, and agency to chart my own course and propel my life in a forward trajectory. Looking back on my life thus far, I realize that I\u2019ve grown from all of the choices I\u2019ve made\u2014the ones that turned out precisely as I wanted and the ones that took a different turn. And, speaking of learning, this process doesn\u2019t end when we finish our formal education. Each day, we\u2019re presented with so many opportunities to try new things and to consider looking at experiences from different vantage points. That\u2019s what makes it such a fascinating, never-boring journey. In the words of poet Henry David Thoreau, \u201cGo confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you\u2019ve imagined.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

And don\u2019t worry about getting all the answers right. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sending you strength and love. <\/span><\/p>\n

Soaringwords is the power to heal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lisa<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s back-to-school season and I\u2019m getting ever so nostalgic. Whenever I duck into the Staples store in my neighborhood, I\u2019m swept up with positive flashbacks from my childhood back-to-school excursions. My mom was wonderfully supportive, always encouraging my love of learning. For this annual rite of passage, we\u2019d go to the local stationery store in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,50,54,56],"tags":[412,29,26,411,413,414,415],"class_list":["post-2286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-mental-health","category-mind-body-well-being","category-stories","tag-back-to-school","tag-mental-health","tag-positive-psychology","tag-school","tag-teacher","tag-teaching","tag-textbook-for-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2289,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions\/2289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}