In my part of the world, this is the time of year when students in primary school have finished their first semester and received their grade cards. The ones who earn the highest scores are given the designation of being on the honor roll, usually having their names printed in local papers and might be given a special privilege, like a breakfast thrown by the school or other favors to reward their hard work.
Once you graduate and enter the so-called real world, you realize honors like that don’t happen very much anymore. Even if you do something grander or more important than landing a good grade on a class you studied hard for, it often goes unrecognized. In certain aspects of daily life, especially the digital world, we’re offered little perks or rewards for doing different tasks or spending a certain amount of money, but such incentives don’t really enrich life much in the long run.
What’s more, we might put ourselves through significant hardship to endeavor to do the “honorable thing” and don’t net rewards or appreciation for it. In fact, sometimes we can be met with criticism or flat-out rejection for it. In other cases, it may just seem to go unnoticed and doesn’t appear to affect the outcome of a matter at all.
“Why even bother?” we sometimes say with a roll of the eyes.
A while back, my mom and I were discussing this. I was the one rolling my eyes, recalling a variety of situations that were difficult to endure and didn’t end with the result I hoped my efforts would foster. When you’re in the fight itself, the hope of accomplishing something good can pull you through the bad. Once it plays out, however, and you feel like you’re on the losing side, the strain of the battle finally takes its toll.
Her advice to me helped me regain my strength and balance. She brought out the fact that the best thing to come out of such situations is the way you feel about yourself. Perhaps nobody noticed the lengths you went to or understood the pain it inflicted, but you know it. Therefore, you can walk away, typically a stronger person, with a better sense of self-worth than if you had taken the easy way out or worse, done the wrong thing.
Along with that, we cultivate perseverance and other advantageous qualities from those trials. Though they might not serve us as well as we wished in the initial challenge, they probably will benefit us at other impasses we encounter. These qualities are rewards in themselves and are all our own, regardless of how others may or may not receive them.
Whether we realize it or not, people actually pay attention to what we do and how we act, though it may not be those we intended to reach. Years later, we may learn the effect we had on onlookers beyond our perception. Especially when children are involved, we should never take for granted the impact we can have on them and the lessons they draw from observing us.
While our various labors probably won’t receive recognition in news reports or a round of applause, they still count. In the end, we live with ourselves each and every day. We don’t necessarily want to laud ourselves in a pompous way, but we can be spared regrets when we stick to our values as we navigate difficult situations, regardless of how matters turn out. And if we unknowingly impact a bystander somehow, it’ll be all the more worthwhile.
KarinaBartow.com 