What Will Matter: Teachers Edition

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The lesson plans, staff meetings, parent conferences and school house polities that once deemed so important will fade away.

The annual parade of fresh faces will and the noises of chattering children, stuff feet and slamming lockers will be heard no longer.

It won’t matter how much you earned, the car you drove or the street you live on in the end.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is your every act of dedication, passion and example that enriched, empowered and enlarged young minds.

What will matter is not how many people you taught, but how many lives you touch.

What will matter is the way you honored your parents, loved your children and supported your friends.

What will matter are not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.

It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choosing teach is choosing to live a life that matters.

– Michael Josephson

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