A teacher in New York
decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the
difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del
Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, one at a
time. First she told them how the student made a difference to her and the
class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold
letters which read, “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”
Afterwards the teacher decided to do a
class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community.
She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out
and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the
results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.
One of the boys in the class went to a
junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his
career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he
gave him two extra ribbons, and said, “We’re doing a class project on
recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a
blue ribbon, then give them the extra blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a
third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report
back to me and tell me what happened.”
Later that day the junior executive went
in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy
fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for
being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive
asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him
permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, “Well, sure.” The junior
executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss’s jacket above
his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, “Would you do me a
favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody
else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school
and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects
people.”
That night the boss came home to his
14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, “The most incredible thing happened
to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and
told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius.
Imagine. He thinks I’m a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that
says ‘Who I Am Makes A Difference’ on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an
extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home
tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I
thought about you. I want to honor you. “My days are really hectic and when I
come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for
not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but
somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that
you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important
person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!”
The startled boy started to sob and sob,
and he couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father
and said through his tears, “I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow,
Dad, because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I don’t need to.”
-Author Unknown
