Where The Happiness Project took me this weekend

It was Thursday, and I had about 26 hours to go until school let out for spring break. My sleep quality has been stellar lately, but my face wasn't showing it. I knew that, but it was really proven when a student suddenly asked, "Ms. Conroy, are you sleeping okay?"

"Actually, yes," I said. "But it doesn't look like I am, does it?" I remembered the bags under my eyes that startled me that morning as I checked my reflection before leaving the house.

"No, no, you look fine," he said, ducking back into the paper he was writing.

God bless that child.

On Friday morning, I felt suddenly compelled to reread Gretchen Rubin's THE HAPPINESS PROJECT. I first read this book almost 9 years ago and loved it, even though much of it was N/A for me (marraige and kids mostly, but I was also nowhere near a career then either). Something has been off for me for the last couple of months, and even though I couldn't remember many details from the book, I remembered the feeling, and I thought it might reveal to me what I needed to realign.

On Sunday I read the chapter on work, and it showed me the answer. When I started teaching high school, I was a long-term substitue. I had come in midyear thinking I was going to teach this 11th grade English class for 2 weeks, and I ended up staying on until the end of the year. I stayed because they asked me to and because I wanted to. I had spent my whole life trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, what would be most meaningful, impactful, what would make me look good, what I would be good at. Teaching 11th grade was the first time I did anything without worrying if it was what I was "supposed to" be doing. I was fully present when I was there, and I looked forward to each next day. I purely liked it, and that was all that mattered.

Now in year 6 (year 4 certified), when I teach, I'm on a mission that doesn't have much to do with me. I want to give kids a safe space. I want to get them excited about reading and writing so that they can be better readers and writers so that they can have more opportunities in their future. When I started teaching, if you asked me if I wanted those things and if those goals influenced my actions, I would have said yes, but I wasn't thinking about that mission every day. I was there to have a good time. And by showing up happy and interested in what I was doing, I was taking the same actions that I take now, just without overthinking and worrying and feeling desperate to prove myself.

So now I know my goal is to find a way to keep getting better at instruction while bringing myself back to that feeling I used to have of simply enjoying what I was doing.

Any suggestions on where to start? I'm all ears.