I Needed to Get Out Tonight
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
Today I had a rough first day back at work. I’m a 4th grade teacher in California and my school just put new carpet in my room. As a result, I had to take every item out of storage and rearrange all my things from the heaviest desks to the minutiae of staples. Tomorrow I have my biggest chore: the walls. I have to hang colored butcher paper and staple them up. It’s a daunting task, if you are a teacher you know.
When it was time to go home I could have gone home to take a nap (which I considered) but I thought taking my wife out to the new sports-bar pizza joint would be more inspiring. It was tasty and they even had a popcorn machines. As I had a few Amber ales and chatted with my wife, my troubles seemed smaller. I looked around and saw the many other people in the evening restaurant air and imagined their problems. Despite them, they were laughing and giving high-fives … I was glad to be with them.
My point of this vignette: get out more. Often when we want to hide from our duties and jobs what we really need is just to put ourselves where the people are. That’s where we find we aren’t any better or worse off than most of them
