What School Did You Attend?

Most of us went to The School of Hard Knocks. Our diploma says, “S**t Happens.”

We did something wrong and paid for it, sometimes more than we thought was fair: drove too fast and wrapped ourselves around a tree; cheated on a test and failed the semester; got too cozy and had a present nine months later.

Maybe our first job was horrible, the boss was a stinker, the pay was lousy. That’s part of it. Then we got fired, laid off, shifted to a lower department.

Some people don’t like this school and try to avoid it. Their first essay, every essay, begins with: “You’re doing this because I’m [fill in the blank].” That’s an easy way to get out of the learning experience. Avoid going through what everybody else has, this necessary part of life, by avoiding it through blaming everyone else.

“You’re doing this because of …” race, gender, age, religion, nationality or clothing; anything at all which will keep you from this learning experience. Why not just be honest and say you’re scared? We all were, but we didn’t have those excuses years ago. We just had to put up with it and grow to become the people we are.

When we graduate from that school, we have learned how to treat others. Not as we were treated (revenge against the innocent), but what not to do. There will still be hard knocks, but we can show how to overcome them.