Motivation

Sometimes, I wonder what other people do in order to stay motivated with long, seemingly unending tasks. I don't know if other people are able to switch off the button that says: "I care a lot about this", or if other people just have inherently more motivation than I do, but sometimes it seems like other people are motivated and I'm not.

I'm sure that it's just a matter of perception and it's not actually true, but it feels true. I know that I'm just tired, but being tired makes me feel profoundly demotivated. What can I do about that? What can I do?

Doing what you love

I wonder if most people have to take a lot of tangents in life to figure out what they love to do or if most people just "know".  Maybe the people that love what they do just choose to love what they happen to be doing.  I think that I love what I'm doing with my life right now, but I often feel like it's only part of a puzzle that I'm putting together.  I'm still finding all the pieces for my life calling.  

It's been fascinating to realize how much I love teaching (something that I never realized when I was in college) and slowly, slowly I'm discovering what aspects of teaching I love the most.  The work that I've done in the past that has let me be in constant contact with people who are looking for opportunities to improve their (less that good) circumstances makes me think that I would love to have my life work dedicated to that group of people.  

Something else that I've realized is that I didn't go wrong when I chose to study history in college.  I LOVE the story of people and the ways that people have interacted with one another throughout place and time. This is why I love literature, history, and geography.  These are the subjects that I find most exciting to teach at school, in part because I'm most prepared to teach them and in part because they are the ones that I love the most. 

What I am doing right now, writing here, makes me feel like this is the missing element -not only telling stories, I get to do that all day long at school, but actually writing them down.  I think that the writing part is what makes me enjoy planning for teaching, I enjoy writing down what needs to be done and ways that we could accomplish what needs to be done.  I think about this a lot and feel like there are many ways that these different elements can come together to become what I will do and love.  I hope.

Making mistakes

On Friday we were let out for spring break and as I usually do when I have a 'break' I start reflecting on what I do and wondering if this is actually the place for me.  I want to be able to 'live in the moment', but being someone who reflects and reflects about what they are doing and where it will lead inspires me to continue wondering and dreaming in spite of being very certain that I ought to be where I am and doing what I am doing at the moment.

Last week I was feeling sick. I had a fever and was feeling exhausted.  So much so that when I was trying to multiply two numbers in class, I got completely confused and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and had to ask for help.  In that moment, the students said, "The teacher is being taught math by another teacher, that's not good."  

The cloud that was blocking my brain didn't allow me to really think about it until later, but being taught and teaching one another is something that makes us better people.  If one is not completely incompetent in what one is doing, being taught and teaching is how the world works, but it is often so hard to humbly accept that one can make obvious blunders in front of others.