When I grow up

Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?

I suspect like me you had a many ideations along the way. I wanted to be a pilot, a professional football player and a teacher. There were others of course but I cannot remember them. I know that as we grow older we become more at home with our areas of interest and strength. Or at least we are meant to. The truth is that I still have the same desires and urges to be a multitude of things. Honestly I think I have simply become less optimistic about the eventualities of life. I've also possibly become more sophisticated at hiding my hopes in the subtext of my other actions.

Maybe this post is a confession. I love teaching but I want to be a few other things while I am teaching.

I would love to be a philosopher. A carrier of truth, depth and thought about life and its machinations. At the same time I would love to be an artist. I don't mean a painter or sculptor, I mean someone who captures an essence, an aesthetic, in the things he does in order to move the heart of the person who encounters it.

Everybody loves a story, but a story told with depth and artistry moves a person's very being. It disrupts and sends echoes of beauty to the very core of our humanity. It acknowledges a truth that is innately grasped.

I think true theology is a divine meeting of philosophy and art. Encountering a God who joins himself to us while pointing us to the reality of who he is- that is beauty and truth. The creator of beauty and the originator of truth. God: the philosophy and art of life.

So maybe its not who I am but who I know that will enable me to grow into the person I want to be.

So instead of:

'that's what I want to be when I grow up', 

maybe it's:

'that's who I want to know so that I can grow up'.

Conflict

Conflict is one of those inevitable things in life. At some stage you will have some.

Today was one of those days. It was not a bad thing. It was a disagreement over teaching convictions and teaching practices. The conflict got heated, things were said, people were passionate and then things settled back down. It followed a familiar pattern and in the grand scheme of conflict it was mild. But conflict never seems mild. I think for most people (and definitely for me) there is something highly threatening about it.

Truth be told, I left today's conflict not overly concerned intellectually but distinctly confronted emotionally. I've noticed a trend. Ever since my burn out, I cannot face conflict. And I don't just mean conflict that I am in. If I am in the same room as conflict it makes me feel very threatened, uncomfortable and scared.

One of the great things that has come about as a result of having nothing to give emotionally, is that I realised just how much of a person of feelings I truly am. The flip side of it is that there are certain feelings, certain emotions that cause me a great deal of anxiety. I am unsure as to whether I have felt these emotions before. I feel like I have felt them but they never used to be so heightened or threatening. Conflict sends my heart into overdrive.

There is a belief that I picked up as a result of my time in America. I believed the reason I couldn't get along with people was that there was something wrong with me. That is a harsh, and very false, cross to bear. Conflict challenges this belief. It causes me to regress into believing the reason I am in conflict is because there is something wrong with me. (It can even go so far as to say that other people are in conflict because I was not able to help them solve their issues). Conflict causes me to feel like I am the problem. That, my friends, is a horrible place to be. It means that I have to avoid conflict at all costs, otherwise I am going to be rejected and deemed unlovable. (I am not looking for pity in this, it is simply an expression of how I subconsciously process these strong emotions).

It might be easiest to conclude that life lived in relationship with others is just too hard and something to be avoided if possible. Perhaps I could believe that if it weren't for tonight.

After the events of this day I came home to an empty house. I enjoy solitude but I do not enjoy isolation. The other two people who were in this conflict with me I am sure went home feeling a sense of stress and tension as a result of the day. I certainly did. Each went home with their respective wives and their respective families. Each could debrief the incident and share their thoughts and emotions in a way that helped them to decompress. I came home to my thoughts. The very same thoughts that link conflict with rejection and a lack of worth. My point is not to make you feel sorry for me, my point is that even though it was relationship that caused me hardship, it would have been relationship that helped me to feel human in that conflict. It is in relationship that we get to be challenged, grow and be supported. In this regard I should value the conflict I had today.

Who knows, it might be relationship that teaches me how to see conflict as an opportunity for growth rather than rejection. If that is the case, I might be the one cowering in the corner a few times hoping that the noise in my soul would go away.

Keystone Hobbies

One of the strangest side effects of my burn out has been a loss of enjoyable hobbies. I used to love doing things outside such as playing sports and running. I enjoyed playing card and board games. I used to do things.

I no longer have these things. I don't know where my hobbies went. They were there when I last checked but I lost them somewhere along the way...I've already checked behind the couch.

When you shut down one aspect of your life, it seems others shut down with it. It's like Ecology (I'm a Biology teacher after all). When one part of an ecosystem is affected you just never know what the flow on effect will be. There is an organism within any ecosystem which is considered to be vital to its health and success- it's called a Keystone species. Without this species the ecosystem loses stability and slowly changes or dies. Maybe Risk was my keystone species. Perhaps as a result of letting go of some of my hobbies, I let go of my creativity.

When I have down time now, I only do one of a few things. I either play playstation, watch TV or search the internet for something stimulating. My ecosystem is out of whack. It lacks diversity and, as a result, health.

I need to find a keystone hobby. My new hobbies are enjoyable but happen too often. If you have any good suggestions for me I'd be happy to give them some consideration.