I was going through some boxes recently and found two of my grade school report cards.
One from 6th grade and the other from 7th.
I thought, how cool.
That is until I opened them up and read all the wonderful positive (sarcasm) comments about my weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings.
The kind of stuff that makes you feel good and want to try harder (more sarcasm).
Yes of course there were areas I could improve on.
Math’s always been a weakness of mine. It still is. Something about adding X and Z to get Y never made much sense to me.
OK fine, I shouldn’t have been trying to make others laugh during reading class.
What can I say, I enjoyed seeing people laugh.
It made me happy.
It’s not like I was getting into fights, stealing, or spray painting the school up.
What I found most fascinating about these report cards was, no where in them was there notes about my strengths.
About what I was doing well. Nothing positive for me to feel good about.
There was no mention of me alway being picked in the school yard to be captain as we picked teams to play football at recess.
No mention of me picking the less athletic, less popular kids to be on my team so that they weren’t picked last.
No mention of me being at church every Sunday morning at 6AM with my grandparents.
No mention of me being an alter boy and helping to serve the church and my community.
And while this was grade school for me years ago, seems much hasn’t changed these days.
We’re constantly scored in all areas of our lives yet it’s our weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings that are often highlighted.
Rarely is it our strengths, wins, and what we’re good at.
There’s lots of room for improvement and I strive to be better every day.
I also know there are things I excel in and can be proud of.
There are many things you excel in and should be very proud of as well.
Regardless of what our score card shows.
I think Albert Einstein put it best…
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
More in this episode of my Mornings With Mike podcast.
Thanks for being here.
You’re awesome…
Cheers!
Mike
