Gratitude

A thankful heart creates a healthy mindset, guards against entitlement, and allows us to appreciate and embrace the world. Gratitude helps us to be joyful, to enjoy the good, to celebrate, while keeping our sights on what is ahead, with hope and purpose.

I saw Mumford and Sons a couple of weeks back. And the lyrics from their songs have been floating around in my mind since. In their song Awake My Soul, there is a poignant refrain, at once hopeful and sad.

“In these bodies we will live, In these bodies we will die, And where you invest your love, You invest your life.”

There are lots of ways in which we are invested: in our kids, our spouse, our work, in ideas, in education, in the future, in the teams we follow, in the things that matter to us. If we really want to know what matters to someone, we can ask them, but we should also watch them, because how we invest our time and our love will let us know what matters most.

But what has this to do with gratitude? Good question. In the same way that our loves shape our lives, so too, do our attitudes to life, the approach that we bring to our days and interactions.

I recognise that people have different dispositions. Some by nature, are like Tigger, all enthusiasm, others like Eeyore, where it’s all too hard, some are eternal optimists, some terrible pessimists. And yet, we can choose, to a degree, how we face the world.

And on the back of last week, with Mothers’ Day Morning Tea and Grandparents’ Day in Primary, with Student Opportunity Week in Secondary, we can choose to be grateful. Grateful for those in our lives, for friends, for family, for extended family. We can be grateful to those around us, to parents and to teachers who enable us to create and provide the opportunities that we have at school and at home.

Entitlement is not healthy, nor does it foster happy and positive lives or relationships. Gratitude, on the other hand, helps us to enjoy what we have, and not take it for granted.

Let me express, then, my gratitude for the families of NBCS who trust us with their children’s education and who shape and share our community. Let me express my gratitude for the students of NBCS, who genuinely like each other and their teachers, and for the most part, enjoy and make the most of their opportunities every day. And let me express particular gratitude to the staff of NBCS. Working alongside them I have the privilege to see their commitment to the education and wellbeing of our students. Last week, whether at school or on Student Opportunity Week, they went out of their way, above and beyond, to provide our students with opportunities and experiences that some of us may have dreamt about in our school days.

May gratitude change your life. May it change the lives of those around you, for good.

Tim Watson
Principal