Here I am, now 22 years old in 2009, feeling very much as I did a year ago. While I look much different than my April 2008 counterpart and some of the settings have not changed, I find myself in similar situations.
When I was a senior in high school my math teacher, the legendary Larry Maday, introduced us to the function machine. It was, in his words, “a crude machine, but a reliable one.” No matter what, if you insert an x into the machine, a y would emerge from the other end. While that was the last math class I have taken, the lesson of the function machine has continued to serve me in practical situations.
April 2009 has been very similar to 2008. I face uncertainty regarding which school I will teach history to students. I also have put myself in a relational pursuit that does not seem geared to my particular drive and abilities. I will be completely honest. Last year, I was not happy. Things did not go as I would have liked. Sure, some things turned out decently in the end, but the journey to get to that point was not enjoyable.
When faced with these situations, I initially forgot the lesson of the function machine. I put in the same x as I always have and was surprised to be consistently met with y after y as a result. Stubbornly I have used the same modus operandi and continue to be met with the same failure, hoping that just once I will break through. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that it is some sort of admirable drive or determination but rather arrogance… or worse, insanity.
So what do I do? Ultimately I have to attack things differently, or the lessons I learned in 2008 will have been in vain. I no longer will settle for failure, for being a punch line, or for being treated consistently worse than I deserve. It is time to regroup and time for reinvention.
When I was a senior in high school my math teacher, the legendary Larry Maday, introduced us to the function machine. It was, in his words, “a crude machine, but a reliable one.” No matter what, if you insert an x into the machine, a y would emerge from the other end. While that was the last math class I have taken, the lesson of the function machine has continued to serve me in practical situations.
April 2009 has been very similar to 2008. I face uncertainty regarding which school I will teach history to students. I also have put myself in a relational pursuit that does not seem geared to my particular drive and abilities. I will be completely honest. Last year, I was not happy. Things did not go as I would have liked. Sure, some things turned out decently in the end, but the journey to get to that point was not enjoyable.
When faced with these situations, I initially forgot the lesson of the function machine. I put in the same x as I always have and was surprised to be consistently met with y after y as a result. Stubbornly I have used the same modus operandi and continue to be met with the same failure, hoping that just once I will break through. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that it is some sort of admirable drive or determination but rather arrogance… or worse, insanity.
So what do I do? Ultimately I have to attack things differently, or the lessons I learned in 2008 will have been in vain. I no longer will settle for failure, for being a punch line, or for being treated consistently worse than I deserve. It is time to regroup and time for reinvention.
A function machine similar to the Maday model.
