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Caring Less About Work Is Helping Me Survive
I will no longer sacrifice myself as a martyr for the cause
I think I care too much.
Everyone tends to compliment me on how hard I work and how patient I am with my work. They applaud my commitment and devotion.
But I’ve recently realized that working too hard, being overcommitted and over devoted are not always positive traits.
Work has not been going well. I don’t want to get too into details, but as a special education teacher, I feel like I haven’t done the best job staying on top of my documentation or serving my kids in my classroom. Some attempts to redirect behavior have not worked very well, and lesson plans I thought about for days have not worked well.
The day after my worst day of the school year last year, I made a mental shift. In my mind, I gave up a bit. I started caring less. I wasn’t going to fuss about every phone being out or every student that put their head down and slept during my class. We have a firm mask mandate, and some of my students will not pull up their masks even if I ask them to several times. I wasn’t going to micromanage or go above and beyond to redirect a student who wasn’t focused or didn’t want to do their work.
