I've finally rooted the cause of the occasional irritation and the often unexplainable and erratic changes in my behavior.
I'm having a quarter-life crisis-----and I happen to be a full-pledged teacher.
This is not a great philosophical idea. That's a fact. But if you're one of those persons who would often find connection and meaning in simple things and try to express them in the simplest way possible, hoping that it can create a more significant random of thoughts and ideas, imagine my relief (in my often exaggerated manner!) when I came up with this realization.
Moments before realizing this, I was too scared with the possibility that maybe (just maybe) I was really not meant to be a teacher and the signs are just surfacing after three years of teaching experience, right after college---that I was just too blinded years ago by my passion to change the world (we all go through that stage) and my strong idealism. I am even close to hyperventilating at times, when I imagine myself stuck in this profession forever, growing old into a bitter teacher ---and to think that I dread the idea and concept of the dull, ancient “Miss Tapia”.
And if this really would have been the case----so, what of me now?
Call it rationalization or being egotistical, or whatever you may want to call it. But I just want to reiterate: I was really relieved. In fact, truly relieved, when I realized that if most complain about midlife crisis, in my case, I am suffering from quarter-life crisis and what magnifies it is that I happen to be a teacher.
It is at this stage in life when my goals and priorities are unclear and yet, I have to remind my students to set short-term and long-term goals to direct their priorities in life.
I advice my learners to make wise decisions but I often get confused when I have to make mine.
I constantly give activities to hone my students to act maturely beyond their age when discreetly, I once in a while long to go back to a time when responsibilities are not too many and I don't have to be accountable of a lot of things.
I once presented the idea that there is a reason and purpose for everything but I share senseless stories and laugh crazily 'til my stomach hurts when I'm among old friends.
When I lecture and appear like a pro on time management, I cringe inwardly (with a clean, unadulterated kind of guilt) for all the weekends when my work are piling up and I go around clowning with family and friends, sharing the latest town gossip, or staying 'til the wee hours of the morning mooning over some mushy Korean telenovelas.
Questions must always be provided with answers when I have a lot of unanswered questions myself.
I try as much as I can to give solutions to my learners' problems and concerns when there are moments when my problems are left hanging and I even have this great desire at times to run away and hide from them.
I have to encourage them to nurture their talents or find something to spend their excess energy into when the time left for me amidst all the deadlines to beat is only enough to keep my sanity--- that I could not even really go back to the sheer pleasure of being able to write and be published.
I present these great ideas about love and life which I share with them when sometimes, I get pessimistic about life and love.
I can go on...
...and on
...and on about the duality of the life that I'm leading at the moment.
It may sound like I'm a hypocrite or a complete fraud (when parents get to read this, they might immediately want to pull out their kids which are in any of my classes) but you can only truly understand what it is to be in this stage when you yourself are in it. I can't escape from it. I can only deal with it. And besides, it does not bother me now.
All I know is that I'm at the stage in life (and everyone goes through it, though in different forms) when getting confused is normal; when I set goals and priorities now and most probably change them the next day or the next hour; when growing up, I mean really growing up, means going through the excruciating moments of bearing the outcome of wrong decisions, or having to stand up to a cause all alone.
However, all of these are magnified because I am in a profession in which I need to guide and direct lives when I myself needs all the guidance that I can get; a profession in which I have to let students see and nurture their dreams when mine becomes blurry; and a profession in which I have to give so much of me while being expected to need so little or even nothing in return.
So I may grumble occasionally.
Get confused.
Get scared.
Be anxious about nothing really in particular.
Become the worst company on most days that even those who love me to the most extent will have to grasp for reasons why they continue doing so.
Appear as if I carry the burdens of the world.
Make a lot of mistakes, and make them again.
I will most probably be the living definition of the term “grumpy”.
Worse, wonder at times of why did I even become a teacher.
JUST LET ME BE.
But don't get me wrong. I'm supposed to be where I am now. I could not even think of another profession that I would like to spend the rest of my life into.
As I said, this is just a phase in life---very much and yet, more worse than the awkward moments of teenage. Very much soon, I'll finally grow over this and I'll finally be myself again---a little bit different, but a whole lot better.
So if I am not myself now, I really can't put the blame on anybody or fully to my self even.
You see, I'm on a quarter-life crisis. But I'm very much, and will always stick on being a teacher.
I'm having a quarter-life crisis-----and I happen to be a full-pledged teacher.
This is not a great philosophical idea. That's a fact. But if you're one of those persons who would often find connection and meaning in simple things and try to express them in the simplest way possible, hoping that it can create a more significant random of thoughts and ideas, imagine my relief (in my often exaggerated manner!) when I came up with this realization.
Moments before realizing this, I was too scared with the possibility that maybe (just maybe) I was really not meant to be a teacher and the signs are just surfacing after three years of teaching experience, right after college---that I was just too blinded years ago by my passion to change the world (we all go through that stage) and my strong idealism. I am even close to hyperventilating at times, when I imagine myself stuck in this profession forever, growing old into a bitter teacher ---and to think that I dread the idea and concept of the dull, ancient “Miss Tapia”.
And if this really would have been the case----so, what of me now?
Call it rationalization or being egotistical, or whatever you may want to call it. But I just want to reiterate: I was really relieved. In fact, truly relieved, when I realized that if most complain about midlife crisis, in my case, I am suffering from quarter-life crisis and what magnifies it is that I happen to be a teacher.
It is at this stage in life when my goals and priorities are unclear and yet, I have to remind my students to set short-term and long-term goals to direct their priorities in life.
I advice my learners to make wise decisions but I often get confused when I have to make mine.
I constantly give activities to hone my students to act maturely beyond their age when discreetly, I once in a while long to go back to a time when responsibilities are not too many and I don't have to be accountable of a lot of things.
I once presented the idea that there is a reason and purpose for everything but I share senseless stories and laugh crazily 'til my stomach hurts when I'm among old friends.
When I lecture and appear like a pro on time management, I cringe inwardly (with a clean, unadulterated kind of guilt) for all the weekends when my work are piling up and I go around clowning with family and friends, sharing the latest town gossip, or staying 'til the wee hours of the morning mooning over some mushy Korean telenovelas.
Questions must always be provided with answers when I have a lot of unanswered questions myself.
I try as much as I can to give solutions to my learners' problems and concerns when there are moments when my problems are left hanging and I even have this great desire at times to run away and hide from them.
I have to encourage them to nurture their talents or find something to spend their excess energy into when the time left for me amidst all the deadlines to beat is only enough to keep my sanity--- that I could not even really go back to the sheer pleasure of being able to write and be published.
I present these great ideas about love and life which I share with them when sometimes, I get pessimistic about life and love.
I can go on...
...and on
...and on about the duality of the life that I'm leading at the moment.
It may sound like I'm a hypocrite or a complete fraud (when parents get to read this, they might immediately want to pull out their kids which are in any of my classes) but you can only truly understand what it is to be in this stage when you yourself are in it. I can't escape from it. I can only deal with it. And besides, it does not bother me now.
All I know is that I'm at the stage in life (and everyone goes through it, though in different forms) when getting confused is normal; when I set goals and priorities now and most probably change them the next day or the next hour; when growing up, I mean really growing up, means going through the excruciating moments of bearing the outcome of wrong decisions, or having to stand up to a cause all alone.
However, all of these are magnified because I am in a profession in which I need to guide and direct lives when I myself needs all the guidance that I can get; a profession in which I have to let students see and nurture their dreams when mine becomes blurry; and a profession in which I have to give so much of me while being expected to need so little or even nothing in return.
So I may grumble occasionally.
Get confused.
Get scared.
Be anxious about nothing really in particular.
Become the worst company on most days that even those who love me to the most extent will have to grasp for reasons why they continue doing so.
Appear as if I carry the burdens of the world.
Make a lot of mistakes, and make them again.
I will most probably be the living definition of the term “grumpy”.
Worse, wonder at times of why did I even become a teacher.
JUST LET ME BE.
But don't get me wrong. I'm supposed to be where I am now. I could not even think of another profession that I would like to spend the rest of my life into.
As I said, this is just a phase in life---very much and yet, more worse than the awkward moments of teenage. Very much soon, I'll finally grow over this and I'll finally be myself again---a little bit different, but a whole lot better.
So if I am not myself now, I really can't put the blame on anybody or fully to my self even.
You see, I'm on a quarter-life crisis. But I'm very much, and will always stick on being a teacher.
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