Sterling Griggs

I teach high school students for a living at a private, Christian school. You may have just read that and thought to yourself, "Oh, that's nice. Sterling teaches in a sanitized environment to a bunch of semi-rich kids who can afford tuition. That's not real life, but kudos to you." While it may be true that I am not employed in the arena of North Carolina public schools, what I have come to learn over my years of working with middle school and high school students is that while socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds may differ, not one teenager is immune to the struggles that are paramount to this current generation. Known as Gen Z or whatever it is that they are called, this current generation of middle school, high school, and college students have no idea what it's like to be raised in an environment free from the trappings of technology. They never had to endure the torture of walking across the room to manually turn the TV channel, dial-up modems...

I have a confession to make: I am terrible at waiting. If patience is a virtue, then well, I ain't got much virtue. Truth be told, this is nothing new. Patience and waiting on events and schedules to happen has always been a sore spot for me. Almost every Christmas Eve growing up, I was the kid perched at the top of the stairs starting at 3:00 a.m. anxiously counting the minutes until the sun would begin to poke its head on the horizon so that I could finally get a glimpse of the glorious presents that awaited me. I eat the cookie dough before it goes on the baking sheet. I'm sure you do too, but I eat A LOT of it before it can be baked. I was the senior in high school that got on the phone with Wake Forest University to find out if I had been accepted because I simply couldn't wait for that letter any longer. Thankfully, they said yes. So as I recover from my heart surgery at home, you can imagine this is not the easiest of scenarios for someone like me to play out. M...