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My biggest mistake as a teacher so far has been trying to be someone else and not being true to who we are. I had a long talk with a friend today that urged me to continue being consistent with who I am and my values and personality — what he valued the most in people was consistency.
We can’t try to change other people — they have to try to grow and change themselves. And how can we be true to trying to change others when we can’t even change ourselves?
In the first season of “True Detective,” protagonist Rust Cohle tells two detectives about who he is, and although he isn’t proud of it, he has accepted it. He works as a bartender four nights a week after his resignation as a homicide detective, and in between, he drinks copious amounts of alcohol. Cohle doesn’t fit society’s standard of perfection, but he is in full understanding of who he is, and it’s a lesson to us to do the same.
Likewise, isn’t it only human and natural to try to grow and change, to try to evolve? Perhaps Rust Cohle’s epiphany comes as a sign of resignation, that he just gave up trying to grow or change. But that isn’t the truth, because in the show, simply the passing of time and our journey along that passing grows us.
