Late Lessons

I was reading some of the posts in a forum on my high school. The name of a teacher kept popping up. I wasn't sure about who the teacher was, as the name was in English, and I only remember my high school teachers by their Chinese names. So, I decided to get out my yearbook and find out who that teacher could be. I found the teacher, but just like other aspects of this nostalgia business, I got distracted by the foreword of the yearbook, written by the principal at the time.

Sometimes, time has the effect of filtering out trivial things, and leaves only something important behind. Other times, it simply erases everything, important or not. I am not sure what I thought of the remarks in that foreword the first time I read it. I bet I did not pay much attention to it. When I read it again, a few minutes ago, I was struck by the simple wisdom it contains: learn an additional language, and your horizon widens. Such a simple lesson, so easily dismissed.

After struggling with English for the last 25 years, I have to say I wish I started paying attention to English much earlier. Perhaps I would not have needed a few years, wasted years, to become proficient in English.

Then, I read about the comments by some of the former students on the teacher whose name started this whole thing for me. I was again struck by how similar I probably felt when I was their age.

It is so easy to be destructive, and so difficult to be constructive.