I remember my insouciant days in high school when I thought i knew everything and took advises with a pinch of salt. It is funny when I think back at my teenage years and how we all thought we had life figured out, I guess we have all been there. Lol!
Being popular with everyone in school was such a big deal, almost more important than having a good grade... well having a good grade means being popular, so yeah, having a good grade was up there probably because of that. Sucking up to authority would gulp up any student's credibility faster than Winnie gulps honey, so it was not one of those things a student wanted to be caught doing. Were we bad kids in the true sense of the word, I would not say so, we just wanted to asset our self confidence and taking the school authority with the most minimal seriousness was a glowing way of saying "I am now an adult."
While we were sure we knew as much about life as all the actual adults in school knew, of course I am talking about the teachers... duh! We were in awe and tremendous respect for one man. We loved him as it was ever possible to love, we respected him so much that we considered the school grounds hallowed because they were his. When ever he passes by, we do not avoid him as we would most teachers, we wanted him to see us, we made effort for him to notice us. We wanted his smile of approval.
This incredible human was my high school principal. Perhaps it was because he was an old man, infact the oldest in the school, but it was beyond that --it was almost supernatural.
He is nothing like the high school principal we love to hate in movies. His warm smile was geniune and his frown was displeasure overflowing in love. He was never pretentious and hate was never found in him.
I could go on eulogizing this sage, but do you know what I still find most profound about him? --His wisdom.
Every morning for 3 years he was my high school principal, without fail, hewould stand before us at the school assembly (school assembly was a daily routine in my school), we all lined up at our best temporary behavious, eager to hear him speak. Not that he ever said anything new, he always said the same thing to us and for most of things he said to us was, "Always do the Right Thing, At the Right Time, In the Right Place."
I still consider this the best advice I have recieved my entire life. Perhaps I am partial because I love the man from whose lips this advice came forth, but I am sure regardless of your age, culture and life experience you can agree with me that this was as good as advices could get.
I hope I can honour the memory of this beautiful soul that unified us as a school, a man that inspired us while he was with us, a man that saw the good in the worst of us. I hope I as long as I live, I would always remember to always do the right things, at the right time and in the right place.