A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student tot he front of the class, one at a time. First, she told them how the student made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented wach of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with the white letters whcih read. "Who I am Makes a Difference."
Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students 3 more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgement ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honoured whom and report back to the class in about a week.
One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honoured him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him 2 extra ribbons, and said,
"we're doing a class project on recognition and we'd like you to go out, find somebody to honor, give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgement ceremony going. Then please, report back to me and tell me what happened."
Later that day, the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sait his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him he he would accept the gift of a blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, "Well sure." The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss's jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon he said, "Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honouring somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbon is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people."
That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says "Who You Are Makes A Difference" on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started think about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought of you. I want to honor you. My days are really hectic and when I come home I don't pay much attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You're a great kid and I love you!" The boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, "I was planning on committing suicide, Dad, because I didn't think you loved me. Now I don't need to."
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