Caring

I remember talking with a fellow student in high school one day when he brought to my attention the sign on Mr. Coate's wall that contained the phrase "if you do not care." It was a long-running joke for some of us that Mr. Coate's lower-case r looked awfully similar to a lower-case v. So this student thought that the sign had instead read, "if you do not cave."I had also been a victim of this during the insect test that he gave everyone in Biology and Zoology. Is it ovipositor or oripositor? If that is a question on the test, I will just make my v indistinguishable from r as well. At the time this was all just a very funny misunderstanding, but in the years since has become something that has stuck with me.

I had probably read that sign on the wall every day at least one time in class. Even with such repetition, the only part that that still sticks with me is the last line: "if you do not care." The biggest lesson that I ever learned in Mr. Coate's class is that it was my effort, character, and desire that would ultimately lead to my success in life.

His tests were difficult. The amount of material that we were required to assimilate seemed infinite at times, but I learned that it was possible aslong as I cared enough to make the effort to succeed. It has taken me many years to learn this. As a young man, I thought my natural talents would guarantee my success. In fact, many times I challenged myself with seeing how little work I could put into my preparation versus how well I performed. At the time, I thought it was arrogance; I now understand it was a personal fear of failure. How does one reconcile to himself that he made his strongest effort possible, yet still came up short of his goals?

I would often make fun of my peers that would spend every evening studying over the material. The people who spent months studying for their lab practical were a favorite target of mine. Sure, they got an A while I only got a B. My secret was that I had only spent one week preparing for it. In fact, Mr. Coate had to kick me out of his room on the Friday before the test, because I was still cramming, but he had to spend countless hours that
weekend preparing for that test, like he had for countless students in previous years.

As with many students, I eventually settled into a comfortable level of effort vs. success as modeled by the graph above

(continued)