Life Lessons: Making the Best of a Bad Situation

I may have told this story before, so if this is familiar to you already, I apologize. I guess that’s how you know you’re getting old – you start re-telling the same old stories, thinking they are new!

Anyway, when I was in the 8th grade, I took algebra from a very funny man. I loved Mr. Larsen – he was hilarious! He’d write equations on the blackboard (we still had blackboards in those days – ha!), demonstrating various problems and their solutions, and then turn around and wink at the class and say, “See that? Smooth as a baby’s bottom!” Or another personal favorite, “Boy, that’s slicker than Vaseline on a doorknob!” Or sometimes, it was "slicker than snot!" He really made algebra fun and (relatively) easy.

For both my 7th and 8th grade years, Mr. Larsen was the only math teacher who taught the more advanced math classes, so I naturally assumed I would have him for geometry in the 9th grade, too. That’s just the way things went. So, I was quite surprised to receive my class schedule just before 9th grade started, and see that I was assigned to take geometry from a Mr. Daly instead of Mr. Larsen. I was devastated.

I complained to my parents, who said, “Give him a chance! You never know, he may be even better than Mr. Larsen!” I was skeptical, but saw their point. The first day of 9th grade dawned, and I (rather sullenly) went to my geometry class, fearing the worst but hoping for the best.

It turned out to be even worse than I had feared. Mr. Daly was a huge man, shaped like a mountain. Or, maybe that was just my perception. He only seemed like a mountain due to his partiality for wearing brown corduroy pants and green plaid, flannel shirts that made his lumpy, close-shaven skull look like the snowy peak of Mount Baldy as it sat on his wide, sloping shoulders. I craned my neck up to watch his face as he paced the front of the classroom. Like Mount Baldy, Mr. Daly seemed just as cold. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that slid down on his nose as he tipped his head back to survey the class, and his face was set in a permanent scowl.

Knowing that looks can be deceiving, I tried my best to be optimistic. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad…. That thought lasted just as long as it did for him to call the class to order, and hear him say, “That was once…” when no one complied. He called us to order a second time, and was met with only partial success. “That was twice,” he said. He tried one more time to gain the classes’ attention, and then BAM!!! Out of nowhere, a yardstick slammed down on Mr. Daly’s desk.

Everyone jumped! As we all turned in our seats to face him, we were shocked into silence. “That’s three,” Mr. Daly said, his grim smile showing small, neatly-spaced teeth. I already hated him.

Over the next few days, I would hear stories from my friends who were lucky enough to be in Mr. Larsen’s class, about how much fun they were having. They would tell me how funny Mr. Larsen was, and how he picked on this person or that person, and made this joke or that joke. Meanwhile, I dreaded going to Mount Baldy’s class.

After the first week, I begged – literally begged – my parents to transfer me out of Mr. Daly’s room. I couldn’t stand it! Please, please, please, please, please?!?!?!

Finally (probably out of sheer self-preservation) my parents agreed to go talk to the school counselor about getting me out of that awful class. I had high hopes that I would soon be back with my beloved Mr. Larsen.

We went into the counselor’s office and sat down. My parents explained that I was having difficulty with Mr. Daly and wanted to be in Mr. Larsen’s class, instead. The counselor asked me why. Well, because!! Mr. Daly was big and scary and stern and not nearly as nice or as funny as Mr. Larsen, and all of those other things that seem terribly important to a 9th grader.

I will never forget what that counselor said: “Well, a lot of times in life, we don’t get to choose our situation. We’re just handed what we’re handed, and we have to figure out how we’re going to deal with it. But even though we don’t get to choose our situation, we do get to choose how we’re going to handle it. You have to figure out how to make the best of what life hands you. When you grow up and get a job, you can’t just quit your job if you don’t like your boss. If you do, how will you pay your rent, or buy food to eat, or gas for your car? Nope – you have to figure out how to make the best of the situation. So, this is as good of a time as any to learn that the one thing that determines what kind of experience you’re going to have, is what kind of attitude you choose to have going in to it.”

At the time I was upset. I could see the counselor’s point, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. But my options had been exhausted. So I ended up staying in Mr. Daly’s class. I even managed to have an OK time, eventually – occasionally catching a glimpse of a rare smile from Mount Baldy when we did particularly well on any given geometery lesson.

I must admit, however, that the counselor’s lesson has stayed with me far longer than any of Mr. Daly's - and been infinitely more valuable.