No time for a title (yet again.) More random job musings.

 So, here I am with an abundance of time (18 minutes) at the end of lunch, to write a blog post. Perhaps I’ll try and write less, but more thoughtfully. Perhaps I’ll try to be a bit more cheery. I’ll tell you what gives me cheer: 3 months. Three months and change to go. I’ve already talked with my mentor about how I’m thinking of leaving, but I think they still have hope that I’ll change my mind. I suppose miracles are possible. But it doesn’t seem likely.

I could imagine myself staying here if I was offered part-time work. Where I only had to come in the mornings or afternoons or something. That’s probably what I’ll do until I figure out something better, when I’m back in Fairfield. Once I’m done taking a nice long well deserved break and honeymoon. But my wife sorely misses Fairfield, and that is a large factor in my considerations. If this job really turned out to be my dream job, then it would be worth the move away from our friends and community, but as it has turned out to be more lesson on perseverance and doing hard and uncomfortable things, it seems unreasonable to keep Suzannah here for that. I can get that anywhere.

I’m getting excellent experience as a classroom teacher, but, I don’t like being a classroom teacher. Hopefully the experience will transfer to whatever I end up doing. It will certainly transfer to being a dad at least. But again, moving away from friends and for Suzannah, from family and a deeply rooted community, for something like that, experience that I hope will transfer to whatever I actually want to do (whenever I figure that out)… the scales don’t balance.

So I continue my lessons in patience, perseverance, non-attachment to success or having time or being well rested. And to working on several areas that I’m both weak and uncomfortable in, and working on doing that with grace and peace. As I’ve said before, even if I’m not having a good time, I can always find gratitude for the opportunity to learn valuable lessons.

My mentor asked me why I always had the Sunday night blues, and I didn’t have an answer, but recently I reflected back and I think the answer is quite simple. It is the natural response of realizing I’m about to go back to a job I don’t want to be doing. She recently mentioned something about thinking about your job as service, rather than a job. I think she was trying to help me find a way to enjoy the job more, but I’ve always thought of this job as service. I’m not doing it for the pay, I’m not doing it because it’s a job where I can coast. I’m doing it because I want to be of service. That’s still not enough to make it something I look forward to.

I do look forward to helping children, teaching them valuable life lessons, helping them grow into the best versions of themselves, and sharing my excitement about learning with them. I really do not look forward to the endless classroom management, behavioral management, micromanaging, constantly having to be “on” and scanning the room and pushing the kids who are just goofing off to keep working. I don’t really like the in depth tracking of so many variables required, and I really do not like the constant multitasking necessary to plan things and run a classroom and teach and etc. All the little moving pieces I need to keep in my head, all the things I need to do quickly while also having two other things going on at the same time. I don’t like how little time I have to think and plan without having to multitask and keep an eye on the the classroom. I don’t like how little time and energy I have period.

OK, that’s it, gotta go!

By for now,

-Isaac

The Romance of Work; an Analogy

 Tuesday is the Monday of this week, because I had a three day weekend (thank you presidents). As I mentioned, I’m trying to live in the moment and get the most out of my remaining time here at my job. Whenever the going gets tough though, it becomes increasingly hard not to think desperately about the summer. Whenever I have a long weekend or vacation, the time right before coming back is that much more unpleasant, as I’ve had a greater taste of freedom. 

I continue to use my analogy of relationships here. Back before I had a girlfriend, I convinced myself that having one wouldn’t make a difference, wouldn’t make me happy, so I mine as well learn how to be happy right now, without one. That turned out to be both true and false. Having a girlfriend did assuage some of my lonely-ness, and much of my need for physical affection. (I still think it’s kind of sad how an adult male has so few outlets for physical affection aside from a romantic partner. Sometimes you just want to be groomed like a happy primate in its tribe.)

However, being part of an unhealthy romantic relationship was destructive to my overall happiness and productivity, and the rest of my friendships. On the other hand, when I finally found/co-created a healthy relationship, life was clearly and objectively better along pretty much every measure, or at least not worse.

This long digression is to illustrate what I’m going through now: there is a definite “grass is greener” mentality, that once I’m out of this job, I’ll finally be able to relax and play and be happy and have energy and time for all the things I want to do. There is another part saying that’s a fallacy, and if I’m not happy now, I’ll carry that into whatever circumstances. And I think the actually correct answer is probably something like with relationships. Some changes will improve some things, and worsen others, but once I find work that really clicks, it will make everything objectively better.

In the meantime, I might as well work on what I’ve got. My Sunday night blues recently gave me another chance to reflect on my issues around time: the nagging feeling of not getting enough done with the day, and my self-fulfilling prophecy of doom when I sleep in.

It’s kind of a no-win situation: I’m exhausted by the weekend, so I need to catch-up on rest. But when I sleep in, I feel like I’ve already wasted much of my most productive hours of potential work.

About 3.5 months to go. Really not that long. Really.

-I out

Navy Seal training, reframing struggle, intense activity + self-acceptance.

 I want to think more about this new perspective on work, so perhaps you get another post this week. Or perhaps I’ll just save it for next week, though I’m writing it on Wednesday.

Previously, as I was struggling to get through the days, I was giving myself mini-goals: just get through the day, just get through to the weekend, etc. Currently, I don’t feel like doing that, which I think is a good thing. I’m not trying to “get through” the day now. I’m trying to make best use of the day.

I have a lot of baggage, as probably almost everybody does, around failure, or being bad at something. I get to experience that multiple times a day. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I’m not a good teacher. I’m not awful, but to be really good requires many years, and I’m not even a promising start. I’m lousy at a lot of things that many starting teachers are at least possible at. Or I was. I might be about neutral at this point on the worst of them, and some positive. But I wouldn’t want my kid in my class. They’d probably be decently happy, but they would have to be a self-starter to be getting a proper education. If they were a reluctant learner, they’d get left behind. They’re not getting left behind, in this case, because my mentor is in the classroom as well, making sure things stay up to snuff.

Anyhoo, that’s a digression. The point is, I am continually faced with my inadequacy. But that’s not actually a fundamental problem. It still falls into the category of “nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” I don’t have to believe there’s anything wrong with my poor performance. It could just be a goal that I’m working towards, something I’m working on learning. However, it’s hard to take that unattached attitude. But, I get numerous chances per day. Lucky me.

As I currently see it, this experience is giving me the opportunity to face repeatedly a list of issues of mine, and practice non-attachment and acceptance and self inquiry on them.

- feeling bad about being bad at something or failing at it

- feeling bad about being tired or just generally feeling burnt out or worn out

- feeling bad about not having enough time, and poorly using the time I have (because I’m feeling tired)

OK, it’s Monday next week, so I guess this will be this weeks post. Great! Already mostly written. My thoughts on it haven’t changed. While some of the newness of the approach have worn off, there is definitely a greater… I guess you could call it ‘comfort with the discomfort.’ Of my work. The fact that I have a clear purpose behind every day makes me feel better about my days and my time. I’m not just waiting out the months. I’m utilizing a valuable opportunity to grow.

Nobody likes doing things that are uncomfortable. Actually, maybe there are some people who have figured out how to like that. Good on them. But very few. It is hard to make ourselves do uncomfortable things. But having a classroom full of kids and fellow workmates relying on me is sufficient motivation to get me up and doing my best in an uncomfortable situation. After this job, I don’t see much likelihood of me being in another long-term situation that is this uncomfortable in fundamental ways. I’m going to be more selective or at least, require shorter commitment periods, for my trials. So I may not get many opportunities to be this uncomfortable, or be pressed up against my lack of good fit for so much of the day, day after day. So this is a valuable opportunity.

I get to become really comfortable doing things I’m not good at, not having enough time or expertise to solve things well, or have a good amount of time/energy to give to things outside of work. And that is all ok. Why not? It is the thinking about a situation that makes it ‘bad.’

I think what may have prevented me from understanding this was when I realized this job was probably fundamentally not a good fit for me. Some people are meant to be gregarious and work with groups and lots of people most of the time, and that gives them energy. Some people get energy from quiet introspective time. Trying to give jobs that don’t fit those dispositions is a recipe for discontent and burnout. There are several elements like that in my current job. And any past classroom teacher jobs. This job is certainly the best most supportive I’ve had yet or could hope for. Part of my certainty that it’s not fundamentally a good fit is because of that. If it could every work, it would be here. But again, that is only a problem if I think it’s a problem. I may start steering myself away from such jobs, but these’s nothing wrong with being in one. It’s just uncomfortable and tiring. It’s ok to be those things. I wouldn’t intentionally sign up for it in most cases, but it’s fine.

So that’s my current approach. Face the challenges with courage and acceptance and learn from them. And understand that some of what I’m learning is not specifically about how to be a good teacher, it’s about how to be a courageous human being who has faith in the universe/God. It’s about how to do my best even when I’m not feeling my best. And it’s about accepting myself as I am.

And, as I get more comfortable with all of that, there begins to open up a little more room for experimentation and focusing on how to get better at my job as well, because I’m not feeling as discordant and despondent. I was just listening to a book summary of something a navy seal wrote on leadership and achievement, and there are some parallels with what I’m doing, which is also hard, and uncertain, and tiring, but requires intense motivation and action.

OK, definitely done for the day/week. Gotta get back to the other things on my plate.

Take care,

-Isaac

Tweet posts?

 Again, I have about 5 minutes to write my post this week, squeezing it into my lunch break. Why do I seem to have less time than usual? Anyways, it made me think that perhaps something like a tweet might be a better format for these shorter ones.

Except even when they’re supposed to be short, they generally aren’t. And I don’t really enjoy instant messaging type stuff.

Anyhoo, onto what’s current. For some reason, I hadn’t really made the connection until this weekend, that the challenges I’m facing at work — the things that make it difficult or uncomfortable or unpleasant — are just more opportunities for me to practice my spiritual growth. I like my spirituality to be very hands on and practical, not armchair philosophy. Full contact. And so, whenever there is something in my life that is triggering me or making me unhappy, that’s an opportunity to ask; what about this is keeping me out of my natural state of peace? Because there must be some issue, or I’d just be generally happy and satisfied. For some reason I hadn’t made the connection clearly, between ALL of the issues I have around my job, and that basic truth. 

Of course, that’s often more than half the battle, is just getting aware of things. Once you’ve got that, you’ve got a handle or grip on the issue, and it’s easier to extricate yourself from it, or pull up the weed, so to speak. It’s the issues we’re unconscious of that keep sticking around. Weeds we haven’t spotted yet.

Just having that realization, has lightened me up a bit. So now, I’m trying to look at all my challenges as challenges, obstacles to overcome, lessons to learn, practice for equanimity and my other spiritual tools.

I suppose only time will tell how it goes. But it really is great about bringing up tough issues for me to face:

Issues around being bad at something (I always get the opportunity to do things I’m not good at, in this job). Or do things that I’m uncomfortable doing (also, always multiple times per day.) And even more intensely, to be working at a high level of complexity and with the need for intense commitment and alertness and responsiveness, even vulnerability, while facing these issues. What great training grounds for true equanimity.

OK, gotta go,

I Out