"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler"

For the past two years I have been a teacher (or, if you asked my students, "teacherish"). I had a great time with it and a horrible time with it. The kids are really great in a pull-my-hair-out sort of way, and my fellow teachers have been great with challenging me to be a better person.
But, alas, as it goes with all good things, there must be an end, and I feel this one coming up like a breeze before a storm. Why a storm? Because once again I find myself facing the ever-evolving mystery of the future and I can see its grey, cloudy eyes looking down at me as it holds its little secret, just waiting to burst open and pour out on me. Like a pretentious teacher putting a riddle on the board, the answer is there, on the tip of the tongue of my mind (By the way, what has no legs but still runs?) but it will only be revealed when the time is right.
But like any good riddle, the fun is not found in the answer. In fact, a lot of the time the answer can be a bit anticlimactic. No, no. The allure of riddles lie in their questions. I hate to quote from the movie The Matrix . . . ok, actually, I'd love to right now. In the first movie, when Trinity and Neo first meet in the underground bar/dance club Trinity leans in and whispers into Neo's ear, "It's not the answer, but the question that drives us." . . . Sweet!
So, what's the question? What drives us through our day-to-day activities as we constantly push further and further into the dark room of our future?
Simply one word: Choice.
Left or right? Forward or back? Blue pill or red pill? Coke or Pepsi? Would you like that supersized?
It's a big word to look at. Such a strange thing – this choice, this option, this ability to negate or propagate. Where does it come from? Where is taking us? What exactly is it and how much of it do we really have? Some say it doesn't even exist. It's just an illusion we create to help us feel more in control.
But how much control do we really have? I didn't choose to be born a boy, from Colorado, with striking good looks and charm from here all the way to there. But I did choose to become a teacher, move to Alaska, and point and laugh at the students when they use the wrong 'their/there/they're' in they're papers. Just kidding – I yell and make obscene gestures. (How else will they learn?)
While being a teacher, or at least pretending and getting away with it for two years I had a chance to observe a lot of choices being made. Did you do your homework? Why weren't you here yesterday? What do you mean you have to go to the bathroom AGAIN? I've seen students come into my class, get their work done, and then bug me about what's next. But, I've also seen students come in day after day and just put their head on their desk and do nothing. Some of the students even choose to not come in at all.
For a while this really bugged me. I can remember my first year staying up late nights trying to figure out how to get

through to these students, and there was one student in particular. My stomach gurgled and my dreams filled with animals I couldn't catch or so many bugs that I just couldn't smash them all. As a teacher, I made the mistake of measuring my success off of my student's successes. If this kid was on his way to dropping out it was because I messed up somewhere. If he failed, it was because I failed, and I certainly didn't want to choose failure.
But, then one day, I talked to the janitor, Fred.
You have to know Fred to understand what I'm talking about. He is a short, older Yup'ik man who likes to keep an eye on the teachers. Especially the newer ones. He likes to come into my classroom in the mornings sometimes and shares a little bit of his ancient Yup'ik wisdom with me. You can tell when he is about to drop some knowledge on you because he will raise his hand as if to give you a pencil, and shake his arm up and down to the rhythm of his speech. It's quite mystical, in a Fred sort of way.
Anyway, I mentioned my frustration with the situation one day and Fred simply smiled, stuck is arm out and shook his hand three times as he said, "It's their decision."
I thought about this for a long time. What? No it's not. They HAVE to learn. That's what kids do. That's what my job is; to make them learn. What decision?
But, he was right. The choice is always there. That's the problem. It's the reason socialism doesn't work, people in the world suffer, and we can't all just get along. Because anyone out there can choose to say "No." And a lot of the time, someone will.
Students choose not to participate. People choose not to learn. Men choose not to understand. Nations choose to cut ties, mix up priorities, and pick up arms.
What? No they don't. They HAVE to learn. That's what people do. It's our jobs as human beings to treat each other well and treat ourselves well. What choice do we have?
Apparently, we have every choice in the world. Like crossing the ocean by jumping on rocks that break the surface, we spend our days leaping from one moment to another, one choice to the next. Some are small and we only stay on them for a brief time, while others are much larger and take us quite a bit further.
The most important part is to remember that you are the one that has to stand on your choice. No one else. It's yours, and that makes it precious.
The hard part comes when you can't stand there for anyone else. We look out at all the rocks and see friends, family, or just the general masses getting into deep water, hanging out on slippery stones, and we yell to them, "What are you doing out there? Get back over here."
We have to let others stand where they are. We can lead by example and hope that a path catches on, but to do this we must lead with conviction.
This is something that can be very hard to do, especially if you've slipped and gotten wet before (and being human, this happens, and I'm very human) but if you can't own your decisions, if you can't stand on your rock and claim it as yours then you're just gonna get lost or get wet, and no one likes to have water up their nose.

(By the way, that's the answer: A nose, or water)

So what's my next choice? What rock do I stand on? Anchorage, substitute teaching, and forward - always forward!