Graduation.

Welcome to Summer! 

I don't know about you, but I am really happy it's finally summer. Here in Canada we had a pretty harsh winter, and to finally feel some warm air touch our skin is a real treat.

Along with summer, I have found myself at the end of grade 12, which means I have graduated and I am ready to take my next step; going to university. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, I do have all summer to enjoy.

Graduation is a concept that can be very intriguing. I mean, think about it. The definition for the word "graduating" is the receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma; the ceremony at which degrees are conferred. Yea, that's great, but, let's look to the root of the word which comes from the Latin word, gradus, which translates to "degree" or "step". So when we graduate, we are taking a step. Graduating is usually only thought of in school purposed, which leads to big steps, but in a way, don't we graduate everyday? 

Yes, everyday we graduate, or everyday we take a step on this path called life. When we learn something, we take a step and we graduate, when we accomplish something as small as trying a new food is graduating. If you were to look at a small child, every time they accomplished something small, their eyes light up in excitement and happiness. But it seams as we grow older the pleasure in the small things diminish, and we only see triumphant accomplishes in the larger things.

Last night I thought to myself, what if we just went and made a big deal of of the small things? I don't think I even need to go and recherche this when I say that when we feel good about our accomplishments we strive to achieve more and do more, and it just increases our overall possessiveness. Likewise, when we have a failure we are more likely to feel bad and not attempt to do more and better things.

This is why I like to celebrate the small stuff. Graduate and make it seam big, that way when we do have an unsuccessful attempt, it doesn't seam so bad, because look! I already made a big accomplishment today! Who knows what people would accomplish? If we celebrated classroom achievements for small things, made more students would participate, or maybe they'll attempt more on test. Whatever the outcome, I believe that small things are big things in the whole scheme of things.

As I always like to say, we call all learn a lot from babies.

From my journey to yours,
Amber

Photo's from here and here.