More Impact Than You Think

I always wear a hair tie around my left wrist. It's practical. When I need to pull my hair back, I know right where to find the hair tie. Ponytail in seconds. Today, I happen to have two hair ties on my left wrist. The one I normally wear, and another that I found on a table and put on my wrist until I remember to put it away. Having these two "accessories" reminded me of a story.

Several years ago, I was teaching piano at they Y. Because I was staff, I had to wear a uniform. My way of keeping my individuality was wearing a set navy blue bead bracelets on my left wrist. Six bracelets in all...every day I was at work. One challenge of teaching there was that I had a string of short term students so I was never really sure if I was making any kind of impact at all. Teach for a month or two and not really see them again. I had one little girl who had taken a few lessons before she came to me and already had picked up some bad habits I was trying to correct. I felt like the first couple of lessons were really frustrating for both of us and that we would just finish out the lessons they had paid for and I would just be the annoying teacher she had for a few weeks that one time. Then her third lesson came. She walked into the room, and I noticed her left wrist...with six mismatched bracelets on it. It was a small thing, but it stands out to me as a reminder that you always have more impact than you think. It may feel like you are wasting your time or that a student will never get what you are trying to teach them, but that doesn't mean that what you are doing doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you aren't being a good example or positive influence in that child's life. I have to believe that that little gesture, that tiny way of trying to be like me, means that she knew I cared about her. That she was more important to me than the lesson material was. Or maybe someone just finally liked my sense of style. I guess I'll never know for sure, but I know that I at least influenced her decision to wear six bracelets on her left wrist that day.