A piece of missive

[This was written as part of an email ostensibly for a fellow new teacher, but really for me. And perhaps for anyone who's just starting out doing something really difficult, that they're not yet good at.]

If I were to give a pep talk, it would be something like this: When you start something new, you're bad at it, most of the time. Then, sometimes, you start doing it better, but why  it's better mostly seems random. Some days are good, some days are bad. Who knows why. 

Eventually, you start realizing why things are bad, or good. But they are still quite often bad. The realizing doesn't fix things. Then, as you get more and more experience, and it becomes less of a mystery why things go to shambles when they do, and why things are awesome, when they are there's more change. 

In fits and starts, there are more and more good days (still plenty of bad days) and you realize overall, if you were to create a graph of the jagged, up and down stock-market-like line of the good and the bad, it would be going steadily up, even from the very beginning. Though it's very hard to see, while you're in the midst of the latest jagged low, or when you haven't been going for long, and there's not much to compare it to.

This is the general pattern of Mastery that I've experienced in my life. Though I wouldn't call myself a master, I've gone from "horrible" to "good enough," in at least a few areas, and they all seem to follow this pattern. And they all also seem to yield to persistence. If I don't give up, eventually I get good enough. And sometimes in that process I feel like I have no idea how to get better, and I can't tell if I've made any progress at all, or I don't know how I'll ever make enough progress for it to matter. And yet, if I keep slogging, eventually the mist clears and I catch a glimpse of the green and poesy-bespeckled mountain range I've been traversing, and the vast distance and height I've climbed too. And then it's back into the mist again, up the mountain pass, starting to wonder again if I'll ever get there.

Also, be kind to yourself: burning yourself to the ground doesn't do anyone any favors in the long run. Stay sustainable. And whatever that sustainable level of growth is, where you are exerting effort but not damaging yourself, that's enough. It's like working out. You want to lift heavy enough weights that you are challenged, but if you want to get strong, rather than crippled, you just push yourself a little bit, day by day. What's important is that you can come back tomorrow and lift some more weights. It's not how much weight you can possibly manage to lift right now.

And being a new teacher, you're already being forced to lift dangerously heavy weights, so most of your attention should be on as much strain-mitigation as you can give yourself. And a big part of that is simply cutting yourself a break, when the inevitable happens and something goes less than perfect. Or horribly wrong.

One of the really wise things I've heard, is that all that is necessary, is to do your best. Whatever the result, triumph or tragedy, is God's business. That's his department. Leave it, don't worry about it. Just focus on the action right in front of you. Chop wood. Carry water. And I take "do your best" to include doing my best at life, in general. And part of that is living a joyful life. I think that is part of our jobs. And it's hard work sometimes. But it's also a license to be kind to ourselves, take care of ourselves, as much as we can, within the constraints of our responsibilities.

Well, I've gone on for too long. I hope it is comforting. I wrote it because it's advice I need to hear. 

The best real source of comfort I get these days is just repeatedly trying to place all the stress and striving, the worrying about results, fear, anxiety, etc., in God's hands, and ask him to take care of things. And trust. And trust. And try to remember that sometimes my best looks bad, but it's always good enough.

Doing more scary things, week by week,

-Isaac Out

Story that goes with the picture here