Comoditatea se plătește. The Price of Taking the Easy Way Out
There are things we learn in school that we forget almost immediately after graduation. And then there are things that stay with us for the rest of our lives.
Strangely enough, some of the most important lessons have very little to do with the subjects we were supposed to be studying.
During my second year of high school in Bucharest, Romania, I had a physics teacher named Mr. Coltofeanu.
He was a big man, with a rather intimidating face. He looked a little scary, and I wouldn't say he was the kind of teacher you wanted to upset.
But he was an excellent teacher, and above all, a very fair one.
When it came to examinations and grades, he treated everybody equally. That was wonderful news for students who took school seriously. For someone like me, who wasn't particularly enthusiastic about physics, chemistry, or mathematics, it was a different story.
Nevertheless, I attended every single one of his classes.
Not necessarily because I loved physics, but because Mr. Coltofeanu didn't appreciate students missing his lessons. Besides, I figured that showing up and making an honest effort to understand something couldn't hurt my chances of getting a decent grade.
Today, more than half a century later, I must confess that I remember practically nothing of the physics he taught us.
Well, almost nothing.
I remember two things.
The first was about induced electric current.
While explaining electricity and electromagnetic fields, Mr. Coltofeanu wanted to make sure we understood the principle of induced current. So he taught us a little rhyme:
Eu, curentul cel indus,
Totdeauna m-am opus
Cauzei ce m-a produs.
In English, approximately:
I, the current that's induced,
Have always stood opposed
To the cause by which I'm produced.
He told us that if we remembered those three lines, he would accept them as an explanation of the principle.
And wouldn't you know it? After all these years, I still remember them!
Ask me to solve a physics problem today, and you might be disappointed. But ask me about induced current, and I can still recite Mr. Coltofeanu's little poem.
The second lesson, however, had nothing to do with electricity.
It was about life.
“Comoditatea se plătește.”
Roughly translated, it means, "You pay a price for always choosing what's convenient."
Mr. Coltofeanu used to repeat those words when talking about homework, studying, and our tendency to postpone things we didn't particularly feel like doing.
To make his point, he told us a story from his own life.
When he was younger, after completing his university studies and military service, he needed to obtain some documents from the military archives.
At that time, as he remembered it, the archives were located in Bucharest.
He knew where to go. He knew what he needed. And he knew that eventually he would have to make the trip.
But there was no immediate urgency.
So he postponed it.
A few days became a few weeks. A few weeks became a couple of months.
There was always something else to do, and the trip could always wait until tomorrow.
Finally, the day came when he absolutely needed those documents for his work.
No more postponements.
He decided to go to the archives the following day, get his papers, and be done with it.
Simple enough.
Except that when he arrived at the familiar location in Bucharest, he discovered something rather unpleasant.
The military archives had moved to Iași!
Hundreds of kilometers away, in the northern part of Romania.
Imagine his surprise.
What could have been a relatively simple errand had suddenly become a major expedition.
Now he needed to take two or three days off work, arrange a train trip to Iași, obtain his documents, and travel all the way back.
All because he had preferred the convenience of postponing a task that he could have completed months earlier.
He told us how disappointed and frustrated he was with himself.
And then came the conclusion:
“Vedeți, băieți? Comoditatea se plătește!”
That was his lesson.
And somehow, it stayed with me.
Unfortunately, Mr. Coltofeanu was our physics teacher only during my second year of high school.
The following year, we had a new teacher who was nothing like him.
And wouldn't you know it? In my third year, I ended up corijent la fizică — meaning I had failed physics and had to take a special remedial examination to pass the subject.
Fortunately, I passed that examination and never had to repeat a school year. In fact, physics was the only subject in which I ever experienced such a dramatic decline.
Looking back, I find it rather amusing. Under the strict and intimidating Mr. Coltofeanu, I managed to get through physics. Under his replacement, I almost didn't!
Perhaps a good teacher can make a bigger difference than we realize at the time.
I cannot say that I became a perfect student afterward. Physics, chemistry, and mathematics never became my favorite subjects.
But something changed in the way I approached everyday responsibilities.
Whenever I found myself tempted to postpone something simply because it was inconvenient, I would remember Mr. Coltofeanu and his unexpected journey to Iași.
And more often than not, I would make the effort to do it right away, or at least sooner rather than later.
Of course, I haven't always succeeded. Nobody does.
But throughout my life, that little sentence has returned to me countless times.
Comoditatea se plătește.
It is remarkable, isn't it?
A teacher spends years explaining electricity, magnetism, formulas, and scientific principles to his students.
And more than fifty years later, one of those students remembers a three-line poem about induced current and a story about a train trip to Iași.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest accomplishments a teacher can hope for.
Not that his students remember every formula he taught them, but that something he said helped shape the way they lived their lives.
Thank you, Mr. Coltofeanu.
Your physics lessons may have faded from my memory.
But your lesson about life never did.