Never & Can't...

When I was in college, I met a man named Stanley Shipp.  Anyone who knew Stanley was inspired by him, as well as by his wife, Marie.  He once said to my friends and I to be careful about saying we will never do something.  Whenever he said he would never do something, he knew that was exactly the thing he needed to do~even if it meant packing bags and moving overseas!

Since then, I have been pretty careful about saying never.  However, I have found that saying I can't do something has the same effect on me. (Now, someone else telling me I can't do something has a somewhat different result~that could be another blog someday....)

I remember being asked to do mission work in Romania for the summer of 1991.  Initially I said, "I can't do it." Having just returned from teaching in Scotland, I couldn't imagine traveling overseas the following summer. But Romania wouldn't let go of my thoughts.  I called the team leader before midnight the deadline day to ask if a team of 6 could become a team of 7. (I don't think it was exactly the eleventh hour, but it was close!) My time in Romania remains important to me today, it's part of me.

*After I started writing, I realized the only other past examples are too personal to share in a blog~sorry. 

Quite a bit of my time teaching was spent saying yes to every opportunity that came my way.  "I can't" wasn't a part of my teaching. I loved the challenges and opportunities: teaching, taking classes, sponsoring the newspaper kids, working with peer mediators, kids in the room before and after school, creating curriculum...This may have contributed to some pretty major burn-out by the time I left the classroom.

I have since learned to say "no" to things without saying, "I can't."

Until tonight....A volunteer opportunity came up and I said, "I can't."  Since then, I haven't been able to let go of the feeling that I actually can do it.  So here I am blogging at midnight, since I cannot sleep..thinking that tomorrow, I will be writing an email saying I can do it after all.
~Tracy