When I grow up, I'm going to be an influence on others...

...good or bad, I guess others can decide.

I'm sitting in my office right now...watching out the window in the parking lot as another person test drives a vehicle from the Ford dealership down the block. It's become a regular occurrence. Every now and again, I glance out the window and see someone doing figure eights in the larger part of the lot, stopping and starting the vehicle, testing its maneuverability. It's important, after all...to know how something that will be your means of transportation will respond to your direction.

I was thinking back to my days in junior high, thinking back to two teachers that might possibly have been my reasons for making it through the junior high mentally intact. You see, though I forget how or why now, one of them asked me if I'd like to be a teacher's assistant for them. I'd sit in their office each day, doing whatever it was they needed done, and playing free cell on the computer when they didn't need anything done.

I wrote a poem when I was in 8th or 9th grade, I think the latter, after hearing a presentation about I don't remember what, one of those drinking and driving presentations I think, at any rate, one of those presentations that they show you while you are in school that is designed to scare you enough to not do whatever thing caused the tragedy in the first place. So, I guess for one reason or another, I responded in words. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

I showed the poem to those teachers, one of whom was a health teacher, and also to one of the leaders at the local Youth for Christ place in town. I think I remember getting a phone call later because they thought the poem was about me, and that I had lost someone tragically or something, and I assured them that was not the case, that I had just written the poem to write it. The teachers, on the other hand, read it and told me that they thought it was good, and that I was a good writer. Now, I don't remember exactly what the poem was about, or whether or not it was good. But they said it was, and I liked how that felt. So, I wrote some more. I wrote a bunch of random poems in those high school years, and I remember going back and sharing them with those teachers.

Fast forward several years, and now I am that person, the one who has the ability to encourage others and to reach out to them. One thing I have learned, is that we have this remarkable ability to either make someone believe in themselves, or make someone doubt that they have any ability at all. I have learned that there is a time and a place for embellishment, and that even if someone might not be great at something, being encouraged has the ability to make them keep on trying, to make them want to be better.

I think people have this messed up idea that someone has to be born with at least some natural talent in an area for them to one day be really good or even great at something. A guitar virtuoso, a wonderful cook, a composer or a writer. But I'm not sure that's true anymore. I think, that given a sufficient amount of time, just the right amount of constructive criticism, and enough room to mess up, if someone has an honest desire to do something, they can become great at it.

It's tough though, as the encourager, to know exactly which way to proceed in those situations. Sometimes the beginning, the 'getting of the ground' for the person who wants to become 'great', is a very messy, very awkward process. And not everyone is going to eventually become great, either.