Dear colleague,
One of my children is highly conscientious and can become overwhelmed by the things she has to get done in a given week of school or life. It hits her most heavily during bedtime when I'm tucking her in; she'll get into this spiral of listing all the things she has to do during the next few days.
The counsel I often give her is similar to this line from novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, which I came across some time ago in James Clear's 3-2-1 Newsletter:
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers, and Other Essays
I don't use that quote with our daughter, but I do use the classic line of reasoning found in one of history's greatest lessons, the Sermon on the Mount: “Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” So “do not worry about tomorrow.”
Whether we consider this advice as coming from Jesus or coming from Stevenson, the central truth is an important source of strength for both my daughter and me when we get overwhelmed: human beings are finite, time-bound creatures. We CAN worry about tomorrow, but it doesn't DO anything.
Eventually, you have to go to bed and let Tomorrow You tackle the load of stuff that's yet to be done.
In teaching, one of the ideas you've got to make peace with is that there is always more you could do. It took me my first three years of teaching, working 70+ hour workweeks, grinding myself into dust, to come to this conclusion.
And honestly, it also took me quitting after that third year with no plans of returning to the profession. That year away, in which I worked three jobs as a barista and a busboy and a temp in New York City, was just the lesson I needed. In each of those three jobs, I couldn't work at home. It was just: show up to the shift, do the things the job required, and steadily practice the knowledge and skills of the job until my capabilities increased.
No matter how good I got at handling multiple coffee drink orders or multiple tables at different meal stages, each shift brought troubles of its own. It's just the nature of work. I started to learn to trust the process of improving at one thing (see Strategy #2 of The Will to Learn) and enjoying the capacity that comes with getting used to the kinds of problems that come with a job and how to solve them.
Didn't make all the stress go away — not at all.
But it did help me go to sleep at night. It helped me learn how to let work be a work thing and life outside of work be a life-outside-of-work thing. It gave me an imagination for a strategy I'd learn when I returned to the classroom: satisficing (article here, also see pp. 164 of These 6 Things).
So if you struggle at times with helpless overwhelm like my daughter and I do, it may be worth writing either the Jesus or the Stevenson quote down on a note card and keeping it handy.
Tomorrow really will worry about itself when we let it.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
Ashley says
This ministered to me and was just what I needed to read. Thank you for sharing your keen insights so clearly and beautifully.
Dave Stuart Jr. says
I’m so glad, Ashley 🙂