A Student's D'var Torah for Rosh Hashanah

Every morning I wake up at 5:30. Rolling over, I grab my computer and check Twitter, Tumblr, my blog, and make sure I remembered to do all my homework. Then I may burn a CD for the 52 minute car ride.  After evacuating the cocoon my bed has become, I stumble into my bathroom, put my contacts in and take a quick shower.  I then get my black uniform polo and boring khaki shorts out of my bottom drawer and put them on. Walking into the kitchen I make my breakfast and lunch by making some frozen waffles with Nutella and then make my Kashi frozen meal. After finishing that, I pick one of my many pair of shoes, kiss my mom goodbye, and drive to school. Parking in my usual spot, I put up my sun shield, grab my backpack and text books, and walk into school. I wave hi to Ms. Rose the middle school front desk lady, walk up the stairs, plop my stuff in the math room and then stop by the college counseling office to give my new BFF, my college counselor, Mrs. Fricker, and update on what is happening in that process.

This sounds like a pretty mundane daily routine. And it is. Maybe I’ll listen to new music during my drive in or hit a little more traffic than usual, but each day it stays pretty much the same. It seems so boring to me that I don’t even think twice about it. But, I guess other people don’t see it that way. A few weeks ago, my mom had to come to school with me for a meeting, and I guess while I was sitting learning about vectors in math class, Ms. Rose had pulled aside my mom to tell her how nice it was that I said hi to her every morning and how it’s a daily treat. While I never thought of saying hi to her as anything important, to her it made a big impact. It’s the little things that make a big impact in the atmosphere nowadays and with all the burdens that come with high school, it is important we don’t forget to do these little nice things. Applying to college is stressful and this senior year has been hard, but I am really trying to work on two things, first not saying “like” as much, and second making sure to do a small, nice act every day, every hour. We can get so caught up in what’s going on in our head that we forget what should be important, not angrily finishing up your math homework, but rather making someone else’s day a little better. So as the new year starts today, I challenge all of you to do one, small, kind thing every day.  Pick up a random person’s item after it falls in the hall, ask about a teacher’s weekend, or smile at someone who looks sad in the hall. I know this seems so cliché, and you may take it as some annoying task I’m trying to have you do, but it’s something that could make a real difference.  Tomorrow, do something nice.  It will make yours and someone else’s day.