Some days I feel like I have it all together. Some days I feel like I know everything there is to know. Some days I feel like I have it all figured out.
But most days, I am the complete opposite. I feel like that I am struggling to hold it together. I feel like everybody else is smarter than me. I feel like I am out-of-control of what I want to be my oh-so-very controlled life. I really think that this is good. It gives me a chance to rely constantly on God and the others around me for my strength, my wisdom, and my sanity.
When I was 23 years old, post-college me, I did not see the positivity of being "out-of-control". I had hit what I thought was a complete disaster, rock bottom, and an opportunity to complete re-brand myself. Furthermore, I spent a solid 18 months figuring out how not to weave being a complete disaster in my "brand", who I was as a person. I spent a lot of time today thinking about my life now and what I would tell my 23 year old self and here is what I came up with:
Teach unconventionally.
I graduated with an education degree. Still to this day I am certified to teach 6th through 12th grades English literature and composition. I had a confidence when I started college that I wanted to teach... actually since I was little; however, somewhere in between junior and senior year, I did not want to teach anymore. Being so close to graduation, though, I finished anyways. So I was a college graduate with a degree that I did not want. I know I am not the only one that ended up that way, but after landing my first teaching job (because what else was I going to do?), and hating it, I felt like a failure. A complete and useless failure.
I questioned my judgement, my ability to ever want a family (since I did not obvious like hanging out with my students/children every day), and my worth as a future employee and, more importantly, a wife. What I did not realize is that I could still teach and not be surround by a hundred 6th grader every day. That just because I did not want to be a teacher in the conventional sense, it had no connection to my ability or worth in a future wife or mother. And that I could teach in a place that I would flourish without a summer break or Valentine's Day dance.
I wish I would have understood that my passion did not fit inside a box. There was nobody saying that I had to teach inside of a classroom at an elementary school. I could own my own business consulting and teaching leadership skills. I could manage a team at any level and perfect my coaching abilities with each new employee that came into my department. I could teach through blogging. I could teach through webinars and Google Hangouts and chats via Facebook with friends and others. I could teach unconventionally.
Right now, this means working in the corporate world in training and development. I love it. Seriously, love it. I do a bit of teaching. A bit of instructional designing. A bit of consulting. A bit of e-learning development. A bit of classroom instruction. And I am not a failure or anything close to it.
Letter to my 23 year old self, teach unconventionally. Trust your passion.
