BEING a science teacher handling physics classes and a former student who had difficulties in understanding concepts in my chosen field of specialization, I often try to find lessons in life as analogies for science topics.
Here, I am not going to educate you with pure physics like a person suffering from intellectual diarrhoea. This is more of an attempt to apply what is inside the school to what we are facing outside of it.
Just a little background, Isaac Newton described how forces govern the motion of objects through his three laws. There are varied ways on how the description of this laws are stated, but I am choosing what I think are the simplest ones.
Perhaps, there are also varied interpretations apart from the academic way. This are my reminders to myself and my advice to those who need them.
First law: Law of Inertia. An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will continue to move in a straight path, with a constant velocity, unless acted upon by external force.
In short, if an object is moving or not, it will continue doing what it is doing unless some other force is applied to it. Inertia means the tendency to remain unchanged. Like the behaviour of most objects, what we constantly do becomes our habit.
If we repeatedly do bad actions, we tend to continue doing them until they turn into something we could hardly resist or stop doing. Because of this, we need others to guide us—family or friends.
Perhaps, we can ask our heavenly Father for intervention. Sometimes we allow ourselves to linger, making us unable to move forward. We sometimes need a nudge, a little push to find our way and keep going in a regular pace without rushing.
Second law: Law of Acceleration. The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the force applied but inversely proportional to its mass.”
Sometimes, we are overwhelmed by things we carry on our shoulders. The weight of the things that we carry slows our progress. We have to think things over. Unload and unburden ourselves from the things that are unnecessary or unimportant for they might lead us to places, things and thoughts that are unpleasant until stopping becomes a difficult task.
If the things we carry are all too important to let go, then we have to increase our effort to keep going. If where we are going is not pleasant to the soul, we have to give an extra effort to stop and control ourselves.
Third law: Law of Interaction. To every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. Other people’s actions may hurt us, but our reaction can tell us a lot about where it will lead us.
Some people may put us down, treat us unkindly, but if we react to it in the opposite way, if we use them as inspiration instead of road blocks then nothing can stop us.
Making the lessons in school easier and memorable have always been a challenge for teachers. However, the greater challenge is how to motivate students to learn the lessons that cannot be taught simply by teaching.
Life has many things to offer, layered meanings under simplicities or complexities, analogies and allegories.
The battles we face in life vary from person to person. It is not as easy as saying that you will be fine. But one thing is for sure, we can do something about it. Above all others, we are the ones who govern ourselves apart from the guidance of our heavenly Father.