Tag: perspective

  • Commencement Season: Tassels, Tears, and One Last Trip to the Snack Bar

    There’s something strange about graduation season. For four years, students spend most of high school counting down to the end of school—talking about summer, freedom, and escaping homework forever. Then suddenly, during the final few weeks, everyone starts walking around campus like they’re in the last ten minutes of a movie. People who normally sprint…

  • The Discipline of Presence

    I said this to a group of colleagues the other day. We were talking about the apparent apathy we see in students—and in many adults. “Failing to show up is giving the world your consent to move on without you.” Their response was thoughtful. They said the line had weight—but maybe it was too harsh.…

  • Mirror, Mirror on My Desk…

    We spend a lot of time looking outward. At expectations. At what other people are doing, saying, or thinking. We compare, we react, we adjust. Most of our day is shaped by everything happening around us. But we rarely stop and look inward. There aren’t many moments in the day where it’s just you and…

  • Life Is A Notebook

    I came across this idea the other day, and it stayed with me longer than I expected— the kind of thought that doesn’t just pass through, but settles in. Maybe it’s the way we hold onto moments—like scraps of paper, like old notebooks tucked away in drawers. Every now and then, something reminds you that…

  • Mariachi Me… Same Traje, Different Mileage

    Mariachi Me… Same Traje, Different Mileage

    Being a Mariachi isn’t just about the music. It’s about what you carry before you ever play a note. The traje—sharp, tailored, unmistakable—has a way of teaching you that.  At first, it feels like a costume. Something you put on to look the part. The shine, the stitching, the silver botonadura, the way it commands…

  • Throwing Words Into the Wind

    Let me tell you a story…something I learned about myself, and only fully recently acknowledged. This won’t be a confession of weakness, nor a tale of courage or inner strength. Those are just labels. And the truth is, labels are strangers to far more people like me than most realize. If anything, this story is…

  • Beer Sunset…

    Beer Sunset…

    The kind where the day exhales slowly, where the bottle sweats in your hand like it’s been working just as hard as you have, and the sky turns that dusty orange you only notice when you finally stop moving. It’s porch steps and quiet conversations. It’s the hum of distant traffic mixing with crickets warming…

  • The Longest Day – Sanitized, Signed In, and Socially Distanced

    I’ve had long days before. I mean, who hasn’t. Everyone has a horror story or two about work, some more drink worthy than others. A friend and I were recently comparing notes over coffee, as one does when caffeine doubles as a therapist. The conversation inevitably twisted itself around the question: who had the longest…

  • Dichoso El Árbol

    Music. For most, it is simply entertainment. For some, it fills the silence. For others, it is just noise, or a distraction from what weighs on the mind. But for a smaller number, music is more—it is healing, it is connection, even a kind of spiritual touch. For me, it is a bit of all…

  • Earned Perspective 

    The calm that comes from having seen enough to know this moment isn’t the whole story. That’s a powerful phrase. Earned Perspective isn’t something you’re handed.It’s something you survive long enough to understand. After decades in classrooms, hallways, press boxes, gym bleachers, faculty meetings, and quiet moments after the bell — that perspective wasn’t taught.…

  • Not Just Here, But HERE

    It started as an observation. Not a complaint — at least I don’t think it was. Why do we write referrals for things that could be solved with a conversation? A student taps a pencil too long.Another mutters under their breath.One rolls their eyes. And instead of stepping into the hallway for two minutes of…

  • The Noise of Learning

    I used to think learning was supposed to be quiet.Neat. Orderly. Predictable. But in my world, it never sounded that way. It sounded like pencil scratches in the margins of a notebook, screws rattling on a garage floor, the click of a camera shutter, the uneven notes of a song I hadn’t yet learned how…

  • More Me Than You Think: A Creator’s Spirit

    More Me Than You Think: A Creator’s Spirit

    We all carry worlds inside our heads—some loud, some quiet, some a little strange.This is mine: a peek behind the curtain at the curiosity, the quirks, and the caffeine-fueled chaos that shape how I see and create in this world. One day, that guy in the mirror asked me, “Dude, what goes on in that…