When I started working on the northeast coast in Prince George’s County, Maryland Schools, I found some days quite challenging. I would wake up and read the magnets on my refrigerator, say the “today is going to be a great day” mantras in my head, and drink coffee from my favorite mug. But, sometimes trying to GET THROUGH a day AND make the entire day great became overwhelming.  -Glenna Tabor

Two years ago, I began the Motivational Monday about “Moments” with the above paragraph. If I had to “edit” the paragraph to apply to today, I would replace the last line with:

But, I send my two children to a high school every day. If I start my day being able to hug them goodbye and I can smile at them as they pull out of the driveway, then I am at peace. I lived in the momentwith them. Those may be the last moments we have and I willtreasure them!

How did I handle the challenges of work? In 1993, working in a demanding environment, I decided to live for the moments that each day would bring. I determined to find at least three moments that were good each day. For several weeks, I collected them in my head until I couldn’t keep up with all of them. Of course, at the same time, I was trying to remember all the state standards I had to teach that nine weeks and the fact that my students had to master these standards for the rest of their lives when I only had one hour to teach math for each class. (OOPS! That’s an entirely different MoMo topic. Back to this one…)

I decided to record the moments on a calendar. I didn’t write entire sentences, I just wrote a word or two that would remind me of the moment. At the end of the month I had at least 90 moments to treasure. This made it easier to start my day! Instead of telling myself I had to make the entire day great, I simply tried to look for moments and treasure them while they were happening.

–Glenna