Well that’s what she yelled as she sauntered by. “Shelly, you are a GOAT!” The very first thing that crossed my mind was, oh my God, did I forget to shave today?? Full disclosure… I have a goatee. Yep, sure do. See I was diagnosed with a “hormone imbalance” back when I was a teenager. I got tired of fighting it with drugs (by my early 20’s) and with various hair removal treatments (by my early 30’s) and never looked back. I decided that my hormones were perfectly balanced for me. That meant that I ultimately had to start shaving my chin. One of these days I am going to grow it out for all to see. Of course that will likely coincide with me retreating to our mountaintop tiny home, so maybe nobody will actually see me. But then again, maybe I’ll become known as the wise old mountain goat!
But that wasn’t what she was talking about, and really I knew that. I am an architect and a professor of architecture at a historically black university. The she in this tale is Nakia, one of my students. As she passed by I was discussing a detail with Shannon (my wife, a builder and our design-build specialist) and Rodrigo (another of my students) on the design-build project that my studio is working on. I looked at Shannon quizzically to see if she knew what she meant. Blank stare. I turned to Rodrigo for help. He shrugged. So I yelled after Nakia, “What does than mean?!” I had to know.
“The Greatest of All Time!” She had utter glee in her voice as she made this declaration. I was taken aback. Wow. Really? O.K., I guess. It wasn’t the first time this semester she had said something of this nature. The last time she said “you blow my mind.” Nakia is in two of my classes: Regenerative Design and Net Zero Energy Design. I am a sustainability specialist who doesn’t beat around the bush. I expose my students to the urgency in the breakdown of our social-ecological system while equipping them with the knowledge and skills that they will need to deal with our challenges. I cover the hard personal work we need to do in one class, and the hard technical work in the other. The underlying message is this:
We can do this.
Which brings me to a point. The way that we can do this (whatever this ends up being) is by first and foremost realizing our own inherent potential and then by bringing our own unique gifts to bear. I would have a hard time accepting the title GOAT if it was comparing me to all professors, or all architects, or all sustainability specialists, or all humans, etc. But what if we applied it just to me, myself, and I? As in, I am the Greatest ME of All Time. That, I at least hope, is true… for the moment. Of course I hope to outdo myself in just a second. Waiting… O.K., well, back to my point so that we can all get back to it. The point is that I am gleefully yelling out to YOU this very instant:
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