Turning Points

Two high school girls came into my last period class on Friday to talk with my 8th graders about the decisions they would soon be facing about their high school classes and clubs. One of my students bravely said to me in front of a small group, “I’m nervous. I mean these are the first decisions that I am going to make that will impact the rest of my life. I’m going to look back on this as a turning point.” The others nodded in agreement.

And in many ways, she’s right. At 14, most of the major decisions impacting her life have been carried out by her parents. Over the next few years, her parents will have less influence on her life and she will begin to take the reins and the responsibility. And it’s a big responsibility.

At 14, she probably still believes that life is linear, that one decision once set in motion, will inevitably lead to the next logical step. She may not yet have learned that life has a way of inserting itself (sometimes rudely) into our plans. And that often those turning points sneak up on us when we’re busy blindly carrying out our life blueprint.

Those critical and conscious decisions we make certainly influence our lives: school, marriage, career, children. But the way that we respond to the setbacks and challenges often carries even more weight. Turning points are not only found in major course corrections; they live in how you approach every moment.

And as long as you keep learning and growing, no turning point is ever wasted.

Thank you for sharing!

3 thoughts on “Turning Points

  1. forest9patrol – North Dakota – Semi-retired writer and lover of nature and women. My gravatar is part of the cover of my memoirs, "Dying to Live" The Life & Times of Jimmy Nelson," my true account of growing up on a storybook farm, experiencing a killer tornado, surviving teenage confusion, an adventurous four-year ride on a submarine, a skydive, not maturing into your regular adult, discovering the world is not a bowl of cherries, a crash to the bottom, and, finally, accepting that the only person responsible for me, is me. But first I had to descend into the deep depths of the emotional chasm. In my fiction I do not try to create super-heroes, but rather bring alive common and regular people who try to find love, survive, and react to circumstances as best they can, and, usually, try to do the right thing. My books are more than one genre, from war to sex and violence to romance, humor, horror, fantasy, science fiction to adventure. I write in third-person with viewpoints by men, women, and children.
    forest9patrol says:

    Great cartoon!

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