Did your middos tovos fly out the window?!
Wow! Reading the article about the lasting impact of high school brought about some intense emotions. While I’m an accomplished person today, my high-school days were anything but. It was normal for me to spend the day sitting in the hallways doing nothing. Now I do anything but sit! Baruch Hashem I have a family, a husband, and three beautiful children, I’m in the chinuch world, and I give so much more to the small community I live in.
But still — talking to the people from my high school days makes me feel so “little” again. So empty, so dull, so vulnerable, lacking so much self-confidence. I wish I could make a bold announcement to all those people and show them how far I’ve come, how much I’ve accomplished since, and how much I continue to accomplish. But even a phone conversation with a teacher, friend, or principal evokes unpleasant feelings — and this article helped me understand why I can’t have a conversation with someone from my high school days without feeling small and low. You know what would feel good? For someone from back then to tell me how much I’ve accomplished when they didn’t believe I could.
S.G.
Even though I did have a decent high school experience, I had a really turbulent beis medrash/kollel experience.
As a man, I struggle with ideas such as, You don’t have to see yourself through high school eyes anymore, and high school currency is not the currency you need in real life, in the real world.
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