MY RULES TO SUCCESS
Rosalía
Nalleli Pérez-Estrada
rosalia_na@hotmail.com
I recently was asked to say my seven rules for
success. Of course it was a nice request because the person who interviewed me was
probably seeing me as a successful person and that was why he wanted me to tell
him my secrets.
In that moment I had to confess that I had never thought
about a determined number of rules to be or to feel successful, but that made
me to reflect upon the question and it was so nice to discover that part of my happiness
and my everyday smile is because I am a successful person indeed.
And, while I answered back to him, I could realize that
my definition for success did not have to do with money or properties at all. This
brought to light that I have been feeling successful for a very long time, since
I discovered that being alive is a present that not many people can easily have;
and that many are born and die at the same moment of seeing the light. Also, because
I can do thousands of good things in my free time, for example to love, to hug,
to laugh, to share what I have and I can also cry.
I also
discovered that I enjoy waking up to begin planning my activities for the whole
day while I appreciate what I have around: the trees, the wind, the colors, the
sky, the flowers and the people who walk nearby and when I dream with my eyes open too.
One beautiful revelation was that, while I revealed my
secrets to this student, my soul was open to help him because I really enjoy my
profession. And, although being an
English teacher has not been considered to be the best profession in Mexico,
especially because there are thousands of English teachers with very few good job
opportunities and little recognition in the society, it can be the best
profession because we, as teachers, can share with them our knowledge and give them
the key of communication worldwide at the same time that we can learn a lot
from them too.
Of course I couldn´t tell him that there is a double discourse
in our Mexican educative context, because this country has tried to have
bilingual people for many years, but it
was after the nineties that this language began being taught in elementary
school too. Also, I couldn´t tell him that the good job opportunities for English
teachers have been scarce and there are not many very well paid jobs for us. As an example is the Polytechnic University System.
This has more than 40 universities in all the country, and English is a mandatory subject for more than twenty thousand students every
year and for 9 continuous quarters, with more than 800 hours of study, but the
English teachers are not given the opportunity to aspire to be full time
professors, nor researchers or managers either. Somehow our human rights are
not being respected but few of us talk about this, and the hidden curriculum
weighs a lot everywhere.
While I talked to him I could also recognize that
being respectful and thankful to people you love can ease your life. Besides,
if you are thankful to God (whatever name you give him or her) and to your
parents (who brought you to life) can give you the opportunity of being relax
and to smile to the stars when they are shining or to touch the wind when it
kisses your skin.
Besides, expressions such as loyalty to your ideals,
education with good values, pride about your origins, honesty towards yourself
and towards others, self acceptance and collaboration in every place you are,
appeared in my answers. I had never listed them on a paper, but I could
recognize them easily because they have always been there, in my everyday talks
and actions. Therefore, it was easy for me to find them out in my inventory of
words, and to recognize that what you think becomes your actions, and your way
of living. I also thought that if people decided to list their everyday definitions
for success, they could easily discover what they enjoy from the life and they
could understand their everyday behavior.
At least, but not last, I also confessed him that I didn’t
like to take anything personally, and that if the people said or suggested things I only
received what I could receive and I always gave what I could give.
Rosalía
Nalleli Pérez-Estrada. Directora de Universidad Santander, Campus Tlaxcala.
Profesora por asignatura, de la Universidad Politécnica de Tlaxcala. Investigadora
invitada por CIFE
rosalia_na@hotmail.com
