It was my senior year in high school.Someone asked my English teacher how she had come to be a teacher and her response has stuck with me to this day.

She talked about how she was one of those people who had dreams and aspirations and wanted to change the world. Then, she and the world around her came to the realization that she would become an English teacher instead.

That was one of those moments in my life where deflation does not even begin to describe how I was truly feeling.

I wanted to change the world for the better and truly leave it a better place.

Now, I find myself constantly trying to avoid apathy altogether on a daily basis.

What if she was right?

What if I am destined to be a senior level English teacher?

I wanted to be a Woody Allen, an Ira Glass or maybe a Dave Chappelle – something along the lines of “running things” status.

Then, I thought back to a teacher that was one floor above her, my algebra teacher.

It was one of those classes that I dreaded more than my retainer at the time. I would work for hours on those stupid numbers and formulas until I was so pissed that I was ready to protest the idea of an additional tip, which I guess would be protesting against math itself.

I was constantly crunching numbers, taking exams and getting exam grades that made me a genius with an explicit vocabulary.

My hands were hurting more than my brain on most days; a simpleton would be an upgrade for me in personal descriptive terms.

Now that it is all over and I think back to how this idea of a work ethic was put into me.

Also, how I was taught to kill myself for every point, I realize there was something bigger going on inside that classroom that took me quite a while to figure out.

It was never about hours of homework, or pop quizzes or graphing an ellipse 20 times in order to get a C- on a test, it was about becoming something more than I was before I was handed down the TI-83 silver edition.

So, maybe becoming the next Gandhi is not in the cards for several reasons.

Perhaps, I am not the one that will give the concrete answer to how we are supposed to use sarcasm in a truly productive way. But, maybe I can upset a few people into changing an idea or two that they had about this cruel world, that has been laid before them.

I don’t ever make my way down to see that English teacher when I go back to my old high school. I do, however, find myself walking back into that uncomfortable room on the second floor with no windows and a little lady that taught me the basic fundamentals of algebra one and algebra two.

She always finds a way to tear up just before I leave like she has done a small something right in her job as a teacher and member of society.

Who knows, maybe she had a small hand in that mold possibly.

Is it possible for me to turn back the hands of time and truly remember those lessons that were taught to me before I understood the ways of the world front and back; that I can be productive without being heard by the billions?

I am pretty content with being a sloth, but I am afraid that could have some kind of backlash in the not so short-term future.

I guess I will just play another Woody Allen movie and see if whatever really does work.

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