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| “Sometimes...those who CAN....Teach!” |
“I’m Just Sayin’”
by Alan P. Scaglione
No one wants to save the world!
All they want to do is…talk to Siri!
If you don’t know who Siri is…you are as old as I am.
Apparently, the new IPhone is so smart…it comes with someone you can talk to… her name is Siri, and she converses with you.
And the kids today….they love their Siri!
And their answer for every question???
“There’s an App for that!”
So I sit across from a 22 year old single young lady named Michelina.
Poor thing…she is 22, and I am 52! What could we have to talk about?
She is so polite…she laughs at my Alanisms; she pretends(very well) to be interested in my “View” toward life.
I tell her all the time that she can ask to be relocated just based on generational differences. She laughs!
So… I caught her completely off guard the other day when I looked at her and said,
“Michelina, do want to change your world?”
She looked at me like I was suddenly speaking Chinese, and not very well, at that.
Then she spoke and said something so profound, it inspired me. She said,
“I don’t think anyone is listening. I don’t have a voice. No one is listening to what I have to say, so why bother?”
WOW! What a statement from a 22 year old. I was stunned…and impressed!
She then proceeded…”I knew about Koni (the dictator kidnapping kids and turning the boys into terrorists while enslaving the girls!)
5 years ago. A friend and I raised a lot of money to help. We even sent it off to somewhere to help them. We never got a thank you.
Never got a note acknowledging what we did or that we helped. No one even noticed that we were trying to help!”
This is the same young lady who just changed her major to childhood education because she decided to be a teacher.
I asked her if she thought being a teacher would be her way to be heard.
Michelina replied, “Maybe it will be my way to change my world by teaching.”
I wondered…maybe she did have a voice? And maybe, the ones who would listen to Michelina were the students she would teach.
Just when you think…this “Millennium Generation” has given up on making a mark on their world, you get a message so profound…
“What’s the point in speaking…if no one is listening?”
But every generation…finds their voice!
I mentioned to Michelina how I have always been a “speak up” kinda guy, never ever a “go with the flow” person. I told her that
I was the first man at IBM to request father bonding time. Time off when my son was born to be home with our family.
This was 1985—my boss, who was a woman, literally laughed at me and said, “Why do you need to be home? You didn’t have the baby!”
I explained that we had twin 2 year old daughters and my wife needed help bringing our son home and adjusting to our new addition!”
I took it to corporate HR…they came back with “Give him a week!” and, I started a policy for fathers to take time off for new births!
We can choose to give up because no one is listening or… we can decide to do something that will lend an audience to our voice…
Like teaching!
The Word says “Go ye therefore, teach all nations…” (Matthew 28:19)
And that’s how we are heard—how we find our voice—we teach by example; we teach by words; we teach by passion!
Just like Michelina… we teach!
Until Next Time
I’m Just Sayin’…
Brother “A”
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