Seoul, South Korea

Seoul, South Korea

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Monday, September 5, 2022

Remember to Remember

Take a moment and try something with me here- just stop where you are. If you're standing, take a seat, even if on the floor. Relax your shoulders, arms, legs. Become aware of your jaw and any tension you are holding there, let your body come to rest, just for a few seconds. Allow the your stress and anxiety from the day to dissipate out of your body and leave you.

It's amazing how much worry we carry in our body, and the way that it manifests itself into numerous discomforts, pains, and burdens. Additionally, it astounds me how much we learn to carry with us, the manner in which we so easily adjust to that burden and learn to shoulder it on a regular basis. Here I am sitting just shy into my third week in Thailand, and I find the fact that I have free time disturbing. Should that be the case? Hell no! But I do. The reason is simple, I grew accustomed to it while living in the United States. By the time that I left my role at my last school, not only was I teaching 7th grade social studies, I was also the head of the 7th grade team, the head of the mentoring program for new teachers, a mentor to two new teachers, and a member of the school improvement team. My regular days had me arriving at work easily 30 minutes early, although usually 45 minutes honestly. With the plethora of responsibilities that I was bestowed (not all willingly...), my work days were pushed back to ending normally 30-45 minutes late (although there were days where I did make it out on time, this was rare). The first three months of the most recent school year saw me leaving the school one hour to an hour and a half after our work day ended almost every day. Let's do the math- that's anywhere from 45-60 hours in a work week. And I was only compensated for the mentoring role, nothing else. 

Is that a crazy large amount? Realistically, not really compared to others I know (My husband once worked around 90hrs/week for a job). At the same time, when did it become normalized to expect people to sacrifice their lives to their job? To give up so much to a job that only cares about how much the employee is willing to do for free, and only compensates their employees if its necessary or they feel pressured. My former employer specifically tried to keep me by negotiating pay benefits to keep me from leaving on the requisite that I take on additional responsibilities. Do you know, the reason that I only had to work the extra 1-1.5 hours every day that I did with the number of roles I was carrying was due to my extreme ability to organize, years of previous work accumulated that allowed me to simply modify instead of have to create all my lessons, tests, quizzes, and activities, and amazing team that had the best damn collaborative dynamic I've seen in my adult professional career. To take on more work would be insanity for me. In the beginning, those first three months saw me crying from stress basically every week, and breaking down from the workload thinking I wouldn't be able to do it, fearing that I might need to leave my job from the anxiety and pressure I felt. And keep in mind, previously I have worked a full time job while also studying for my masters part time, and leading a volunteer program at an orphanage in the past. I didn't feel even 1/3 of the stress and anxiety I describe during that time. One job shouldn't have done that to me. 

Which led to me here, sitting at my desk in Chiang Mai, Thailand, breathing in the rain air. Reminding myself and all of you that it's okay to slow down in life. Never in the United States, during my seven years of working as a professional educator would I ever have had time to sit down and blog, study, learn about eco travel, or essentially anything that wasn't work. While I haven't fully adapted to the amount of free time I have yet, I am learning to remember- remember what it was like in Seoul, when I could sit and enjoy a book between classes, making travel plans, and write emails. Remember what it was like in Qinhuangdao when I would go for a run between classes, finish my class and go back to my apartment without staying late, and explored my passion for cooking. Life doesn't have to always be 100 miles an hour, and I knew this once upon a time ago. It took moving to the other side of the world to relearn this, but I will continue relearning until it sinks in, taking each day as it comes, and grating myself grace.