I used to look at people who work from home in envy.
How nice it must be to not commute.
How nice to have lunch at your kitchen table, and actually sit down while eating.
How nice to enjoy the silence of home to work, to write, to create, to problem solve.
How absolutely delightful!
It turns out I was kind of right.
It is great to not have to commute, to be at home more, to actually sit for lunch.
But lately, I've been painfully aware of how WRONG I was, too.
Oh, how great it is to go for a drive (aka - commute). All that time to think and process, decompress, listen to great music. What a beautiful thing!
Oh, how great it is to be so busy helping students that food loses its importance! Eating while supervising is actually something I miss, too. (Let me clarify: I don't miss doing it 2 hours a day...just miss seeing the students socializing, interacting with them, talking, laughing, and helping).
Oh, how great it is to be surrounded by the wild, craziness of adolescence; to have new problems to solve each day, new students to work with, to have noise, and a schedule and bells.
Bells? Yes, I even miss the bells. They were the reminder, every 46 minutes, that I should get out of my office, walk the halls, hug a student and say hi to others. On that note: let me say, there are plenty of zoom meetings now that I wish had a bell or two in them that would allow for a stretch, a time to move, a change of pace.
It seems I miss working from school!
What do you miss? Most of us have a few items that make the list, even if this stay-at-home order is right down our alley. It might be routine, or the quiet of the class before students arrive, or the jokes, the laughs, the energy. We all miss something.
But then I wonder. While it is great to reflect on what we miss, why do we do this?
Why do we spend our time wishing for what we don't have?
What we used to have?
What we'd rather have?
It's just so much easier to see the blessings on the proverbial "other side of the fence". We seem capable of only seeing the beauty of life at a distance, not when it is right in front of us.
So I think it is time to remind myself (and maybe you too, if you find yourself yearning for "the good old days" of February 2020), to take a closer look.
We know gratitude changes our brains permanently. Continually looking to what we have to celebrate alters the way our neural pathways form. It might be time to change the way we think.
The only way to truly do that, to change our outlook, to think differently about our circumstances, is to purposefully take action. We only need to open our eyes to see the ways in which our lives are surrounded with beauty, with grace, with love and with joy. It's there. These blessings we take for granted so easily are right in front of us. Right now, I have birds singing in my trees, the sun shining in my window, my family near me in the house, and so much more. I just need to train myself to see it. Really see it.
So today, I will start (again) to align myself with gratitude and a positive spirit.
I will find time to write down what I appreciate each day.
I will make sure that I praise my own kids as much as I praise students at school.
I will challenge my negative thoughts, the ones that threaten to make life feel insurmountable.
I will open my eyes.
I will open my heart, too.
Yes, today is the day.
Instead of gazing wistfully at the "greener grass" of the past, I will start to plant some seeds, maybe even flowers, on this side of the fence.
Be well.
Kim
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