You have decisions to make this day about YOUR life. Call this your own personal Decision 2012.
We all have to take account of our lives. Good coaches review game film with their players, likewise, it is healthy to review the game film of our own lives to determine how things need to change or move on.
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| Feelings are like laundry - when you've got too much, the only way to sort it out is to dump it out.215 |
Feelings are kind of like laundry - when you've got too much, the only way to sort it out is to dump it out. But, where you dump those feelings should be well selected. Some people use their blog or Facebook page or Twitter account as some sort of therapist. Social media has its uses but it is a God-awful therapist. Do you realize that it is inclined to agree with you, even when someone needs to look you in the eye and tell you to go down a different path? Sometimes I am WRONG and so are YOU. On social media it is way too easy to be "liked" all the way down a path to the incinerator.
So, when you choose to dump your laundry of feelings out on that table and sort it out - I, personally, think face to face with a friend or someone who can help you is better than doling it out piecemeal upon your timeline or status update.
Personally, I take great caution during these times when I sense I'm overtired, overstressed and overemotional. I take your eyes very seriously - some of you read what I write and that is a gift of your time. I want to be honest and transparent but also to be helpful. Not everything belongs out there, particularly because exhaustion causes your emotions to not line up with reality and dirty laundry is always pretty gross.
I also know, however, that as I travel this life, the most helpful posts I write are from the fray. A captain who has weathered a storm has more credibility than a new recruit from the academy setting sail for the first time. As I live through my son's senior year and the mixed emotions is brings, these are things many of you identify with or will identify with very soon.
Like a person approaching the end of the best milkshake she's ever tasted, the last sips are often savored and are the sweetest -- growing full, she still wants to enjoy those last drops. That's me. I sat yesterday at the state One Act Play competition and while the play tied for fourth at state, my son won one of the best actor awards at State. I was there for the whole thing. I didn't blog. I didn't tweet. I didn't even read my latest Mitch Rapp novel. I just watched plays and enjoyed the last sips at the bottom of this cup of my son's high school career.
It is far too easy to worship others - that includes children. I will make no pretense of worshipping my own children at the expense of my health, but I am thankful for the time to savor these moments.
There are a lot of technology things to share with you and those are coming, but today, I feel inclined just to encourage you to live your life well. Enjoy those students. Enjoy your family. Rest sometimes so you can functions. Take time to have an emotional laundry moment with your God or dear friend who is close enough to want that sort of load dumped on their table. This is a time of year with many mixed feelings and emotions and you'll want to take care of yourself so that you'll have something left to take care of those children in your care whether you are a parent or teacher.
Living for someone else is to abdicate the role you were born to play.
Take time today to make a list of the roles you were born to play. Replay in your mind how you are playing those roles right now and put things on your schedule NOW that need to happen - phone calls, visits, and time spent living this life you were born to live. Teaching is a noble calling but we have enough martyrs to the cause. Right now education doesn't need any more martyrs who quit because they are emotional wrecks, we need livers -- not chicken livers but live-ers -- people who can live as successful, healthy, happy functioning teachers who make a difference in this world.
Living for someone else is to abdicate the role you were born to play.
- Written on my iPad using Blog Press by Vicki Davis, author, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds
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