I like to think of the year in quarters.

Maybe it’s the teacher in me, since I’ve never worked in the world of finance and had to worry about big, important, adult things like “time zones” on the other side of the world or whatever the hell a “fiscal year” is. Malarkey to all that, is what I say!

I started breaking apart the year into the standard quarters when I began my tutoring business. First quarter is January-March, second quarter is April – June, third quarter is July – September, and, now, we’re in the fourth quarter. This was a way to track my progress, chart income, and a lot of other boring, typical stuff anyone who has ever run a business has to do. Even though I’m no longer tutoring, this practice has carried on.

While the quarters of a school year are shorter, they have no less importance. You have achievement points to hit by certain deadlines, making sure the kids are keeping up with the content as the year moves on. You don’t want a student to be reading at the same level they did when the year began, so your goal is to make sure they pass those thresholds based on the quarter.

Unfortunately, not every student hits those marks and, suddenly, it’s the 4th quarter, the end-of-year testing is coming, and you need to start making some bigger strides to make sure they leave your class better than when they came in.

You break out the big guns. Suddenly, everything is a game, more treats are passed around, you guzzle an entire pot of coffee in front of your class, dribbling down your chin, just to make it through the day with a caffeinated heart rate of 400.

Because…the year just can’t end like this, can it? Right? RIGHT?

No.

We have one more quarter left in this garbage fire of a year.

Three more months to throw everything we can at the wall to knock it over, say “Bugger off!” then get on with the business of being adults. If there’s something you wanted to do, some big project to get done, then with this year as your witness, and one quarter left to do it, guzzle down that coffee pot, scream into a paper bag then put that bag up to your ear, and make it happen.

At least that’s what I’ll be doing.

…

If the news is called because a crazed father of twins is running through the streets with two empty coffee pots in his hands, screaming about the end of the quarter, someone call my wife.

Thanks for reading,

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