I was battling against my own cynicism a few weeks ago when I remembered one thing and was treated to another. Conan O’Brien is one of my heroes. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, he was recently fired from hosting The Tonight Show. I thought it was pretty rotten, especially since Conan was HILARIOUS. Many people thought he’d be bitter, but no, not Conan. He was gracious and graceful on his way out. (My husband said, “Well, several million dollars will buy a lot of graciousness.” See? THAT is cynicism!) Anyway, back to Conan. He said:
“All I ask of you (my fans) is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Words to live by! Thank you, Conan! I’m putting them up on my wall at school (in English AND Spanish, thankyouverymuch). But I haven’t yet and I’d forgotten them in a few, bitter, cynical moments when my kids said they didn’t have enough money to pay for a field trip two weeks ago. I’m feeling the pressure because I want to provide them with high-quality, educational opportunities, but it’s tough sometimes. I work hard at hustling and finding what I can that’s free for them to enjoy, but even then, we have to pay a bus fee, and that’s always at least $2.00. Many times I just end up paying for the kid to go anyway. I’d like to be a really big person and say it doesn’t matter if they’re not grateful, but I’m not and it does. I would, at the VERY least, like to hear a heart-felt, “Thank you.” Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. It’s when I don’t that the cynicism starts to creep in.
But last week was different and I want to write about it because I have to hold on to moments like this. Four of my kids didn’t have the money for our field trip to see the Lightning Thief. The cost was $8.00. I was thinking, Ok, $32.00, I can pay that. I told the four who hadn’t brought in the permission slips to do it anyway.
I have a young man who comes in to my classroom to help out twice a week. He’s a local college student and this job is part of his work-study program. He’s a wonderful person and a hard worker. He saw one of the girls was very sad and asked her what was wrong. She told him that she didn’t have the $8.00 for the field trip, but that she really wanted to go. After the bell rang at the end of the day, he came up to me and handed me $10.00 and said it was for her. I was so stunned. This is an 18-year-old. A college kid. He doesn’t have any money! I told him no, I won’t take it. He insisted. It went back and forth like that until finally, he just left it on the table. Wow. But wait. It gets better. Two of the other children also told the ESL teacher. She came to me and gave me $20.00 as well and said, “I KNOW you pay more than your fair share for these kids. I’ll be happy to pick up some of this one.” Again, I was stunned.
Strike two blows against cynicism.
