This month frustrated me.
I’ve felt like my best skills were traded for administrative problems I can’t solve, students I can’t help, and projects I can’t satisfy to someone else’s expectations.
I’ve worried my way through weekends and evenings, shifting my weight between issues that keep me from focusing on student learning, coaching interns, or listening to bright spots in my students’ teaching experiences.
I feel like I’ve wasted myself on someone else’s requests.
When did teaching, I’ve wondered, turn into a race to return emails and energy spent on politics and policy?
I sometimes feel my worth is weighed by what I do, rather than who I am. I am blessed with a job that is my vocation, but I’m tired. I’ve eaten a steady diet of saying yes to processes loosely tied to my students, to what I’ve felt is my job. A diet of pleasing others was bound to tip the scale.
I’ve brainstormed some fixes to try to get the weight off.
Step off the scale. I need to stop measuring balance by my empty inbox, meeting contributions, or committees manned. Maybe the weight sits on my work life hips by feasting on too many “asks” beyond the scope of the real job, the true calling.
Fix the scale. I plan to remove email from my phone to decrease the appetizer of you-must-act-now from my day. I need to remember that my skills, and the skills of my colleagues, are sacred and precious, and should be valued above how quickly we all hit Reply.
Don’t be afraid of the numbers. Hierarchy can be hidden inside policies and processes. Communication can be misinterpreted as complaining, and even though we are a team, there are reminders that everyone has their place. I know my place. It’s to serve students who are learning to serve students. When the balance shifts away from that mission, it’s time for a diet!
Things will go sideways. We get tipsy once in a while, but if I want to stay healthy, I have to be careful not to let the scale define me, and to balance on who I know I am, not what others see me do.
