Once, I was on a trip to tour a high school with some fellow teachers. We had driven all day and were tired.
When we finally got to the motel, I went to my room and took a nap, but since I’m a night owl, I was wide awake again that night.
However, the guy I roomed with on the trip was an early bird. He (Chris) went to sleep around 8:30 or 9:00p.m., but I stayed up writing and thinking.
A few hours later, I still couldn’t fall asleep, so I turned on the TV with the sound muted and watched part of a football game. Since I’m not really a sports fan, I figured if anything could put me to sleep, that would.
Around 1 a.m., Chris woke up for a minute, looked around the room and was surprised to see me still awake.
The next morning, he was up at 5:30 – apparently that was his normal wake up time! For the rest of the trip, whenever something funny happened, Chris would somehow tie in the part about me being up in the middle of the night.
Over the next few months, Chris would periodically ask if I was still staying up “’til all hours of the night” or if I was still “keeping people up late.”
We laughed about it and smiled. Chris retired from teaching a year or so later, and we didn’t see each other much after that.
Years later, we were both at the funeral of a mutual friend. Walking out of the church afterwards, we stopped and started talking, catching up on old times.
He asked again if I was still keeping people awake all night, and then he laughed in his booming, heartfelt laugh.
I said surprised, “You remembered!”
He said, “You’re definitely someone who’s not easily forgotten. You’re a blip on the radar screen, my friend – a blip on the radar screen.”
I said, “That’s a good thing!”, and he laughed again.
His comment got me thinking though: How many times do we behave in certain ways, attempting to lie low, follow directions, and be status quo, instead of standing out in memorable ways? I encourage you to live EVERY DAY in such positive ways that you’re always a blip on the radar screen.
[…adapted from Marty’s book An Agreement with Life]
MARTY REEP
Author, Motivational Speaker
- American Marty Reep is the author of more than 20 books on Amazon and Scribd. He tries to motivate people to achieve their full potential and finds humor in the crazy things that happen every day. Marty has offered to contribute this weekly column in the Sunday Star to encourage Solomon Islanders to rise to their full potential.
