One Year at CLE in Review
By Levi Noe, Newsletter Project Manager CLE Denver
One year doesn’t seem like a long time, but it’s 365 days of practice, 8,760 hours of life lessons, 31,536,000 seconds of living, learning, breathing. One year can mean the difference in getting a degree, finding a job, learning how to meal plan and grocery shop, finding self-confidence, making friends. In my time at CLE I’ve witnessed some amazing transformations in one year: a student who barely took care of himself now running ultra-marathons, a student who never cooked before now making gourmet meals and trying out new recipes every week, many students finding jobs that make them happy after months and months of searching, a student with severe anxiety giving her first speech.
So how long is one year? And how much can we accomplish, grow, and learn in one year? It depends on who’s measuring. This year’s lesson, for me, has been to break the stick that we measure ourselves by. It’s easier said than done, but I mostly have my students to thank for helping with this difficult task. Every day I witness things that are outwardly small progressions, but are epic when viewed from the personal lens of each of our students. The student who took a moment to listen instead of talking over someone, the young woman who found her voice and remembered how good laughing feels, the young man who stepped back and took a breath before arguing. It’s all these seemingly trivial events that accumulate into shaping massive growth and change in our students.
So, here’s my takeaway from 2017
Drop the measuring stick, don’t lower or raise the bar — get rid of it altogether, erase the concepts of societal standards and subjective “normality”, and forget that there is any right or wrong way a person should be, there are only differences. And these differences are what make all of us unique and beautiful and strong. This doesn’t mean we don’t have goals, or create measurable objectives to achieve. Mostly, what it means is just taking some time every day to take note of how special and private our personal journeys are. One person’s year may be spent earning a million dollars, one person may be learning how to tie his shoes, another person may find huge success in making one real friend. And each person, each year is well spent, well earned.
When we lose the measuring stick and the scales that we weigh life by, we realize that there is no measure of comparison between our lives. We are all just people, figuring out how to be our best and truest selves.
I hope that 2017 brought great lessons to your life. May 2018 keep us all on our path, reminding us that our journeys and our lives give us value and meaning both monumental and immeasurable.
Thank you so much! I have been a student at the Austin location since January 2017. This helped me because ever since I graduated from Austin Community College in Administrative Assistant, I have been lost in what to do with my life, but I’m getting help. Thank you again so much for this article.
Hi Caroline,
I’m so glad this article spoke to you. We all get bogged down in our path sometimes and it can feel like we’re lost, but most of the time when we make it out of that “lostness” we see that it was just another part of the journey. I hope you keep doing what you’re doing, getting the help you need, and being true to yourself.
Best,
Levi
I loved reading your article Levi! Thank you for so beautifully putting into words the incredible opportunity we have each and every day in service to our CLE students. So grateful to have you as an integral member of our Denver team!