Monday, November 2, 2015




Dear Parents, Caregivers and Friends of St Mary’s School,

A question that comes up a lot in schools and indeed when dealing with young people is what is success? What denotes success? Is it having a high educational qualification? Is it having a lot of money? Is it be-ing in a top sports team? Is it having a lot of good friends? A happy family? Is it good health?

The answer I suppose is all of these or none of these. Working hard to achieve a high qualification is fine but not if it causes you a huge amount of stress. All of these accomplishments that I have mentioned are very worthy but only if the achieving of them causes you real happiness.

There is a saying "be careful about what you wish for as you might get it". The inference being that it won’t necessarily cause you happiness or contentment.

My son is at present in the midst of university exams and he is trying to gain access into a school that has a firm and academically rigid criteria of admittance. To say that it has caused him angst would be a huge understatement. Last week when we were talking and he was explaining his fears I said to him "is being a Lawyer what you really want?" Yes. "Have you worked hard" Yes. "Could you have realistically done any more to pass?" No! Well I said now do the best that you can in your exam and if you don’t make it into Law school you will make a really good accountant or economist or what ever.

The point is that if you really work to your maximum to achieve something and you don’t quite make it, it’s a time to reflect and say "was it really meant to be?"

As Denis Waitley said "happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude".

Have a great week.

Mike Brosnahan

Principal

No comments:

Post a Comment