“be honest, be kind, be honorable, work hard, and always be awesome”

The volume of mentions I get on Twitter makes it impossible for me to read them all, and I miss most of them*. I do my best to read them, because more often than not the people who @ me are funny and interesting, but … math.

Last night, I happened to see a mention from a fifth grade teacher, who told me that one of her students said he was related to me. I don’t have a lot of school-aged relatives, and thought it was probably a kid making up stories, so I asked her what his name was. Well, it turns out that he is, indeed, related to me! He’s my brother’s nephew, and I just love him and his sister (and his mom, who is my brother’s wife’s sister. Go ahead and draw the family map, I’ll wait.)

After I confirmed that we are, indeed, family, she sent me this, which she said inspired the conversation:

Click to embiggen.

She designed this, and it hangs in her classroom. It forms the foundation of her class rules.

I showed it to Anne, blinking hard to get all the dust out of my eyes that had suddenly arrived in our living room.

All I want to do with my life is inspire people to be kind and awesome, and I love it so much that this teacher thought my words were worthy of sharing with her students.

*#humblebrag, I guess.