Sometimes your passion finds you…

During my last semester in the classroom after 38 years of college teaching, I wore a black bracelet every day.  It said “Because I said I would”.  I wore it as a constant reminder to work as hard in my last semester as I had in my first semester back in 1986. I had witnessed dozens of faculty retire or leave the university for other teaching or administrative jobs.  Some acted like their “rookie” year—coming in early, staying late, making every class and answering student questions.  But most acted differently once their departure was announced.  They let their class preparations go stale and rarely provided meaningful feedback on graded material, or returned graded material late in the semester or not at all. In one extreme case, the faculty member moved to another state before “on-line teaching” became a thing and called in sick daily for over a year!

Since I announced my retirement a year in advance, I had plenty of opportunity for a “lame-duck attitude”.  But I made myself a promise to not let down—I introduced new editions of textbooks in both of my classes, I increased my availability to students, and I continued rigorous evaluations of student work.  One of my students noticed the bracelet and asked me about it.  The bracelet, and the idea for the bracelet, is the passion that found Alex Sheen.

Alex Sheen graduated from college in 2007 and started a marketing job at a software company in 2008.  In 2012, Alex’s father passed away and Alex was asked to give a eulogy.  After careful reflection, Alex discovered what he would always remember was his dad’s promise keeping—Alex said that his dad didn’t make a lot of promises, but the promises he made, he kept.  The eulogy’s central theme was promise keeping and Alex took a handful of cards to the funeral that included the words “because I said I would” and asked mourners to make a promise to someone, write the promise on the card and give it to them, and when the promise was kept, ask for the card back.

Alex started making cards available to friends on request through Facebook.  The demand for cards and the stories the cards generated were taking a lot of time.  An anonymous handwritten letter described a girl fighting depression who promised to get through it one day at a time. Alex decided to leave his job and to start a nonprofit (see becauseisaidiwould.org).  When he went in to tell his boss he showed her the letter to help explain his decision, his boss identified the handwriting of the anonymous author—the boss’s daughter!  Since then, Alex has delivered 15.1 million cards on request to people in 178 countries.  Alex has five Tedx Talks (my favorite is Tedx Utica at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iooz1TrCmbs), a recently-released book and a retreat center in Ohio. He has appeared on many of the morning shows including Megan Kelly Today.  Alex talks to college and high school audiences all over the country–I met Alex at Canyon Lake High School a few years ago.

So, in a world where promises and easily made and easily broken, Alex and the passion that found him can make a difference.