success.

For my 24 birthday, I'm decided to create a list. The infamous "Things to be done before I die" list. I haven't crafted it yet, but I had some preliminary items up for consideration:

Drinking water from a natural water source.
Spending a night in a 5-star hotel.
Living a month outside of the good ol' red, white and blue.
Opening up laundromats for the homeless.

Then today happened. At the school where I work, we had a gender meeting among the 5th graders. This is where the students split up according to sex, and discuss various topics. The topic today was role models. Each child was given a sheet of paper with 3 questions:

1) Who is your role model?
2)Why is he/she your role model?
3) What are the charactics of a role model?

The children and the faciliator (me) all filled out a sheet, and we went through each question together. The third child, Khalil, when asked his response to the question, said Mr. Singleton.

He said my name. His role model was me.

"To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded."

I now have a new list.