Cheerful Acceptance and Perseverance

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"I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do.  That is character!" ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The importance of making everyplace you are a safe place.  Working in public school has afforded me the opportunity to experience a wide variety of interpersonal interactions.  Friendships in high school can change as suddenly as the winds on the desert...and can be equally as dangerous.  I have always tried to impress upon my students the importance of making each other feel welcome.  I do not try to force students to be friends with everybody, however I do expect them to create a place where everyone can feel comfortable.  I know that with all the hormones raging high school students can be mean and herd mentality can create some pretty ugly situations.  I though that I had created an atmosphere that mitigated that in some way.....boy was I wrong this year!  I have witnessed two students who were best friends in September become bitter enemies by April.  Things have become so negative that one of the students involved has dropped all chorus classes as a result of this incident.  This student was in 3 choirs and multiple extra-curricular groups.  The student felt so unsafe that she gave up all music in the last quarter of her senior year...  I find this very saddening.

As I work through my issues around self-worth, I immediately turn this inward and think..."What could I have done differently?  How could my actions have prevented this?"  Cognitively, I know that I might not have been able to prevent this....most likely there is a lot more at play than I am aware of.  However, my thoughts are drawn towards the student who felt she had to give up.

Could Cheerful Acceptance helped in this situation?  Absolutely!  I do not know the details of this situation, but perhaps if the student who gave up had been more accepting of her own worth and value, perhaps she would have been able to withstand the pressure of the situation with the other student.  Much like the quote from former President, Theodore Roosevelt, if she had enough self-worth to care more about what she thought of what she did, she would have been able to persevere in this situation.

How can you Cheerfully Accept  who you are and draw strength from it?