Responsible Thinking Center

What are you doing?
What should you be doing?
If you continue to do what you're doing, what will happen?

In high school, those three questions were often asked before a student was sent to the dreaded RTC, an acronym that stood for "Responsible Thinking Center." Not being one to (regularly) misbehave in class, I can only guess what happened in the RTC because I was never actually sent there. On a couple occasions, however, I did have to go through that conversation with a teacher. It went like this:

Teacher: "Sean, what are you doing?"
Me: "Talking."
T: "what should you be doing?"
M: "Listening."
T: "If you continue to do what you're doing, what will happen?"
M: "I'll go to RTC."

And that's where the conversation would end.

In the years since I've been out of high school, I never really thought again about the RTC questions, but honestly, that is to my detriment. Responsible thinking shouldn't be confined to a center, and questioning our own actions and inactions shouldn't only happen when the threat of RTC is looming overhead! Everything we do or don't do has consequences, and we can only benefit from evaluating whether we are taking the best course of action in each moment for the outcome of greatest benefit. There are no teachers threatening me with this disciplinary structure anymore, and the answers should look a lot different now than they did a decade ago. And so, my friends, I leave you with three questions tonight.

What are you doing?
What should you be doing?
If you continue to do what you're doing, what will happen?

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