I traveled over 2,800 miles and spent about 43 hours in a car the 3rd week of May 2018. I have always loved an adventure as a child and still do. Traveling brings us knowledge and opens our eyes to see things in new ways. We can discover so many things along the way about people and the places we visit. I am even convinced that the experiences we have and places we go is just as educational or better than having my children in school in more than one way. The one constant thing we saw during our road trip was that every American Flag was at half-staff. It had me thinking about how our flag now flies this way more and more and that our nation is in a constant state of mourning. I wonder if other parents out there of school aged children are contemplating other options for education? What roads will we travel towards in the future for our children? As a nation we witness more and more tragic shootings and the majority of them being at schools. It makes me want to invest in a Motorhome travel the world and educate my children instead of designing plans and strategies for them to evacuate their schools.
The Flag of the United States of America is a symbol of freedom and liberty to which Americans pledge their allegiance by standing at attention, facing the flag with their right hand over the heart, and reciting:
The Flag of the United States of America is a symbol of freedom and liberty to which Americans pledge their allegiance by standing at attention, facing the flag with their right hand over the heart, and reciting:
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
It's a sad thing to drive half way across the United States and to realize the only constant thing you see throughout the landscape is the flag flying at half-staff. It's also is a sign of respect for our country to show that we are in mourning. If I can stop at a tourist shop along the road and purchase my son a sucker with a scorpion in cased in it, and teach him if you cut off the poisonous tip to the scorpions tail and bake it, you can consume it, without harm. Can I not do the same with issues such as gun safety and education? Of course I do not desire to eat baked insects incased in sugar my self but my kids found it intriguing. It caused us to research the scorpion and learn more about them thanks to the smartphone. That's education at it's finest! We are a family and we are on a mission to educate our children and mentally prepare our children for the world that they are living in. Parenting is hard work and it takes time and sacrifices. We are never 100% that were doing it right or that we've made the right choices, but if we're involved, show up, and take the time to positively educate them, I think were on the right path. All I am a 100% on at this moment is that something needs to change and we as Americans have the power to do so, but what are we doing to change it?
I will hold my children's hands and promise to teach them all I know of this world. How to be kind, thoughtful, caring, considerate, and I hope that is enough. Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?” The young boy paused, looked up, and replied
“Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,”
“When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)
We all have the opportunity to help create positive change, but if you’re like me, you sometimes find yourself thinking, “I’m already really busy, and how much of a difference can I really make?” I think this is especially true when we’re talking about addressing massive social problems like tackling school shootings or finding a cure for cancer, but it pops up all of the time in our everyday lives, as well. So when I catch myself thinking that way, it helps to remember the story about the starfish.
You might not be able to change the entire world, but at least you can change a small part of it, for someone. They say that one of the most common reasons we procrastinate is because we see the challenge before us as overwhelming, and that a good way to counter that is to break the big challenge down into smaller pieces and then take those one at a time. Like one starfish at a time, and to that one starfish, it can make a world of difference.
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