Tell Me Your Life Story

I've never come so close to crying in a German class, which is embarrassing.

Jackson later summed this up in the truest way. "Isn't it amazing how people come to the same end by such completely different means?"

I have a story for you, a story of the life of someone much more dedicated than I. The story of someone very similar to me, though you'd never guess it from the outside. Someone with whom, in fact, I assumed from the get-go I had nothing in common. Come gather round and be amazed by how life proves us wrong.

He told us the story completely in German. For some reason, that made it more amazing. I understood an entire story in a foreign language--and it connected with me so deeply that I became emotional. I think that means something about how much I've learned, even if I've been embarrassingly rusty these past few weeks. But since we're not all German students, I'll give you the English version:

As a child, his home life was less than perfect. His father worked in a factory, his mother was a housewife, and neither particularly cared about school or what happened afterward. His sister hated school, but he loved it--in fact, he loved it so much that he, as he discovered later, made himself a new family at school. His friends were his siblings, his teachers his parents--and aunts, and uncles, and grandparents, cousins, neighbors. He poured everything into his studies and was encouraged often by his grandmother, who valued education the same way he did. He knew that he had to be more, that he didn't want to work in a factory like his father--he wanted to go to college. But his parents wouldn't pay. So after pouring his heart and soul into twelve years of school, he spent another eleven years putting his heart and soul into hard work. Eleven years. He was 29 when he finally entered college, 34 when his dream career became reality.

And he hasn't looked back since.

Now, no one in this world who truly knows me can doubt that I always have good intentions. In my best moments, I'm a visionary. But even in my best moments, following through with a plan is so hard. Staying dedicated and resisting the urge to fall into the path of least resistance takes every ounce of my consciousness--it takes lists on post-its and white boards, it takes google calendars and text message alerts and it takes a lot of pushing from those who tell me, "I know you can do it. "

Only after I hear stories like this do I truly feel "I know I can do it." Some people wait and work years to realize their dreams, and in my case things so often simply fall into place. Some would cite that as evidence of some higher being, some cosmic force working in my favor. But the cosmos, the universe, fate or god or gods or some random chain of circumstances rewarded this teacher for working hard. He is someone for whom I hold a great amount of respect, multiplied tenfold by the five-minute story he shared with us today.

It makes me wonder--it makes me hope--that one day, I'll tell my story (maybe entirely in some foreign language) and it will move someone to tears, it will inspire someone to laugh longer or work harder or spread the love as far as it can reach.

I think that's what I really hope for my documentary premiere in two weeks. That people will be so inspired, for some short period they'll feel what I feel. A calling to change the world, a feeling of infinite hope, a feeling of being in touch with some light that will spread wider and wider until all feel its warmth--knowledge, I mean.

I can only hope and act and pray that my intentions serve me well this time around.