One little thing, one little step at a time; may the joy be in the journey.
A month before a worldwide pandemic would completely change the face of education, I made a really difficult decision to retire from work I had done my whole adult life. I wasn’t certain of what this new life would look like, but I was confident that it would be full and meaningful.
And then, everything changed for all of us, when the parameters of our daily lives became constricted in ways we’d never envisioned. For me, this meant a much more wobbly exit from my teaching reality than I’d imagined, and a much less momentious entry into my new role. I found myself battling opposing feelings of relief and guilt that I was not still immersed in the work of educating children in the incredibly different and challenging ways that Covid required. And I found that the choices I’d considered as options before, were no longer on the table; at least for now.
If there was anything in the subsequent weeks that became clear to me, it was that I did not want to waste moments. I had to become acclimated to the fact that sometimes that meant just paying attention to the moment I was inhabiting so that it wouldn’t be wasted. The acts of slowing down and noticing have always been a challenge for me because I am a doer. A mover. A multi-tasking human, even when research has shown that we really don’t do multi-tasking as well as we think we do.
I did a lot of thinking. A lot of reconsidering what my place in the world would, or could, or should be. I made some commitments to myself about my own education with regard to justice and fairness and love in the world, and where I could make a difference in those areas.
But by the end of 2020, we were all exhausted by grief, or anger, or worry, or loneliness; probably, all of these–in different measures–every day. At least, I know I was. I found myself at risk of paralysis, and I knew I had to take some definitive steps forward to keep that from happening.
So, “one new thing” became a thing. Or, at least, my thing. I decided that, in earnest, I would try to do or learn one new (positive) thing every day, and that I would have to put it out in the world in some way. If the doing was a gesture of kindness, putting that out there seemed easy enough. The gift, or smile, or note, or act would be felt by its recipient, even if they didn’t know it was from me. But, if the act was one of learning, then how would I put that out in the world?
I know! I could create a website that had some of the art I’ve made (read, “positive things”), along with a blog, in which I could chronicle those new learnings.
So, Blessings on this, the first day of 2021. Here’s to making this complicated world a teensy bit brighter, One New Thing at a time.