OK, here I am again at lunch with about 15 minutes to spare, so I’ll give you as much of the skinny as I can fit it.
Last week was deeply exhausting, and made me question my choice of profession. I won’t go into details, but several factors conspired to make me second guess whether I was really cracked up for this job. Some of those factors were difficult students, some were my own feelings of exhaustion some were noticing the differences between me and other teachers. The bottom line was and is that for the last three years of teaching, and for the year and a half before that when I was doing practice teaching, I’ve gone into class every day feeling unprepared and under-equipped, afraid that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Living weekend to weekend, and vacation to vacation. There were many moments that felt good, where I got to say something or show something to a child that seemed like it would make a positive impact on their life, not just academically, but as a person. But I pretty much always came into work with the feeling... how to put it... that I’d rather the day be a snow day, so I could relax.
I’ve been working as hard as I can, to change that, to become a teacher I feel proud of and that loves and looks forward to work, that is sad when there is a snow day. But the feeling hasn’t gone away so far. Though the intensity has certainly lessened from the first days of student teaching, which were some of the most stressful weeks of my life.
My thought process, once I had the realization, went something like this: when I finally found Suzannah, it was because I decided to trust my gut feeling about the people I was dating. I knew the general feeling I was looking for in a partner, that of a best friend. My first relationship, all I asked for was mutual attraction. It became clear that wasn’t enough, so I decided on looking for someone who could become a best friend. I just chose a friend, the friend I was closest to, who was also female, available, and attracted to me, in the hopes that we could work on things and the friendship could develop into a best-friendship. But it didn’t. I think it couldn’t. The other person would have to fundamentally change who they were, and people don’t often do that. The occasional total change of a person is uncontrollable and unusual, and even then, they are still themselves, though perhaps their whole way of interacting with the world is different along with their worldview.
It seemed that the certain resonance that I have with a very few people, that I feel like I could just spend forever with, and they would just make life better for being there, what I call the ‘best friend’ vibe; that doesn’t seem to be something that can develop from nothing. I can become some manner of friend, even very good friends, with many, but the people I just clicked with, I just clicked with.
So then I decided to trust people to be who they were, and refused to continue dating people once I noticed we didn’t have that best-friend vibe, and to trust myself when I got that impression. The first time I tried that, it didn’t quite work out, because they weren’t that interested in me, and I didn’t really have time for a relationship, and it seemed that perhaps we weren’t that good of a fit after all. It took a while to spend enough time together to get a lock on things, since it was a distance relationship. We ended it, quite peacefully, and I focused on my work/schooling. And then it was time and I was ready and I wasn’t going to settle, and, and I was going to trust my inner sense of things, and it happened pretty quickly. It felt right, and it’s been one of the best things in my life ever since.
What about that, for jobs? I was wondering if I could apply the same logic to finding my job/calling. Maybe not, but if so, was I just sticking around with the partner that didn’t really fit, trying to make it work? That kept me up most of the night.
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Looks like this is a two lunch post. I ran out of time at the line above, so I’m continuing on the next day, the next lunch.
There are many things that I can do almost tirelessly. They give me energy, I would pay someone to be able to do them all day. Obviously, many of us would love to just watch tv or play video games and get paid for it, but generally your job has to generate some kind of product, tangible or abstract. I was wondering if I should try and get a lock on that feeling, the feeling of flow and joy in work, and be looking for that, as the equivalent of a ‘best friend’ vibe/resonance that I used for relationships.
I should also add that there were other factors at play, I think. What some would call luck, but I call God or grace, and prayer. The fact that I’d been working hard for years, trying to improve my skills as a member of a relationship, studying and self-reflecting. Even all the learning that happened from reflecting on and making changes based on my past, failed relationships. And all the reading I’d been doing on the subject of finding a good match. I’d done my homework, thoroughly and at some leanght. I think that’s always a part of it. You can send your wish and intention out to the universe, pray fervently, but you are responsible for taking action to the limit of your own ability, before the universe steps in to help. I think that’s done out of kindness, since if God immediately fulfilled all your prayers without any effort on your part, you’d get lazy and feel bad about yourself.
What vibe am I looking for? The obsessive fascination I get when researching something interesting. The intense focus and delight of when I was doing a creative project, totally letting myself go for it without fear. My time doing improv dance. My one-on-one talks with people, listening and occasionally giving some solicited thoughts from my own experience, but mostly questions. I don’t know.
In any case, it’s been several days since my flip out, and a few things have calmed me down. Talking with good friends who know how to listen. Reminding myself that I believe and have had it proved to me over and over, that “everything happens for your good alone.” And taking some time to find a good resource on classroom management that vibes with me at least fairly well, and starting to apply it, and seeing good results, both in how the class is doing, and how I’m feeling, implementing classroom management in an effective way that doesn’t go against my nature.
Still, that little niggling feeling is there, and I’m not sure what to do about it. For now nothing, I suppose.
On to a few minutes of other news: the organization system/habits are coming along very nicely, and showing some immediate positive results. I have confidence that I’ll be able to turn it into a full fledged habit. Some of the steps I’m doing don’t feel very effective or efficient, but I’ll have time to fine tune it once it’s fully online and mostly automated.
That’s helping me with other things in my life, and I’m already feeling more focused and productive on important things.
Suzannah is painting the big room in our house, which is making everything feel lighter and better.
Cat’s are continuing to be very cute in various ways. The bully cats are still present but less frequent. Suzannah’s garden is starting to sprout. I got our piano tuned and am really looking forward to getting back into playing something, even if it’s just a little bit.
Aaand, I think that’s all I’ve got time for. Take care, see ya later, be well.
-Isaac
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