I think my big revelation after the first week of teaching, other than how stunned I continue to be that people don't know the history of their own religion, is that I am working too much and that needs to change.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for all the work I have, all the job opportunities, the great students I get to work with, and by the time April 22nd rolls around I will have made $30K this year already (on pace for a $70K year as an adjunct), this is exactly what I wanted to manifest, but you know, in Portland, I made about $300 a week, I was usually cash poor, starving, too poor to do Yoga, and a hot date with Laura meant $20 between a movie and a meal, and I think I was a lot happier, I felt a lot more free and like life was mine.
These days, I teach, I answer emails, I lesson plan, I grade, I revise, and I have exactly 6 hours to sleep, 1 hour to eat, 1 hour to clean up, each day. Sixteen hours of each day, five days a week (8 hours on another day) belong to work. I get one day off, and even then, I'm grading, emailing, dealing with work stress, compensating for chores undone. Odd thing is, the more money I make, the more I seem to go into debt. In Maine, I had one Credit Card worth $300, now I have $3000 in credit cards, all maxed, I owe the IRS money from my job teaching military (I ended up being treated like a general contractor, to my surprise, at the end of the tax year), my apartment is filled with books I have no time to read, I have a mandolin that I LOVE that I have no time to dedicate to, I have a Yoga membership I have no time (and no energy) to use, a wife and cats I don't see enough, and I know that I'm grinding purely for the sake of grinding: I've become a grinder, in the sense of the gambler, just squeezing out a living between debt and survival, grinding low, grinding high, and not doing the things I should be doing with my life. I think my health and weight, both in a lot of trouble these days, are a sign that I have reached some sort of crisis point. As the lead character says in the movie, Rounders, "But if you're not careful, your whole life can end up one big fucking grind."
I have a few video feeds that I do watch on YouTube, that I catch up on when I can, and one of the messages I keep hearing from them is how they had lives that bogged them down, then they made the leap, they just walked away from the grind, they went poor, they followed their heart, and 3-4 years later they now have successful YouTube careers, successful careers doing what they want to do with their lives. Maybe they aren't making as much money as I do, but they look and sound so much happier and healthier than I am these days.
Can life really be so simple that you believe in your dream, you trust in the dream, and it will carry you through to where you need to be? I mean, of course it can: that's how I got from an unhappy marriage to an unfeeling and abusive person, to freeing myself, rebuilding my career, getting married again, but you know, that whole journey scared the daylights out of me, and when I was poor, I was constantly scared how I would pay my bills, what I would do in case of an emergency. There is also a lot of fear in being an adjunct: you take up all the jobs you can because you never know if the next semester there will be a lack of jobs.
I was recently reading that crucial to Wittgenstein's Theology, something that I have been WRESTLING with as of late, but crucial to it, is the idea, the belief that one lives in a world, absolutely protected from harm and failure from an all-loving God. I don't think, since my days at BU, I have felt that there was an all-Loving God watching out for me. When I left Seminary, when I left Theology, a strong faith survived, it got more esoteric, more mystical, and in many ways it was more like James' idea of "super-sensual," but it was also a strong mystical faith at the ravages of a world where God had simply just walked away. In my martial arts days, one of my Daoist martial arts instructors told me, "If you give your life to the Dao, it will watch over you, and you will never have to want or worry again." There was a similar idea in Yoga, when I did Ashtanga, that if you gave your life to Siva, to being a Yogi, it would carry you through on your journey: it got me all the way to India before I realized I wanted love more than I wanted Yoga. When I gave up on Yoga, it gave up on me, same thing with the Dao, same thing with my yearning to be a priest, same thing with my mysticism that ran a dry well the last two years as my philosophy grew more intense.
But this all makes me wonder, makes me think, what if I gave it all to the sense of "me" that I want to be? What would that look like? Who would I be? I LOVE teaching, so teaching isn't the problem, but how much I'm teaching is, and the fact that I am giving my life to students who are taking classes and learning from me so that they can move on, they can live their dreams, when I myself am not moving on, heading onto and into new things, is a real problem.
Today I had this bit of a dream day. I have a long weekend (my last until March), but I got 8 hours of sleep (I rarely get more than 4-5), I had a healthy Vegan breakfast, I played my mandolin for an hour, I practiced my French for an hour, I wrote for an hour, I spent quality time with the cats (still am), got to snuggle with the wife, did some chores, did some Tai Ji, and I'm sure if I had planned my meals and time better, I could have gotten in some Yoga as well. Even now, I am getting in more writing! Minus some wasted fatty calories I consumed when Laura first went to go visit her mom for the night, this has been a pretty perfect day. Everyday could be like this, it could even be better, so why don't I make it so? The money? The fear? They are so intimately related I don't know how to separate them.
I was thinking about how much I needed to make, at minimum, to live, and still have a life.
Once I paid off my credit cards, paid off my tax debt, I could live on $1800 a month, which is $21,600 take home a year, about $30,000 a gross a year. This would mean no using credit cards, no vacations that aren't nearly free, but it would mean making only $13,000 a semester (plus $5000 in the Summer), not $30,000, which would mean teaching 3-4 classes in Fall and Spring, 2-3 in the Summer, even teaching a minimum of 8 classes a year would make me $32,000, well within my minimum range. If there is any incentive to scale down my life, teach less, have more free time, it would be to have the time again to get into a regular diet and yoga focus again, the time to knock out that first novel (or two) and establish the life I was want to live.
Big confession here from my teaching the last three years: I'm done trying to impress anyone anymore, done not feeling like I get the recognition I deserve from my teaching. I produce great students, I have a brilliant mind, I have great degrees from #1 ranked Universities, and maybe this over-doing of the teaching is also about dragging the canoe across the desert of my feelings of worth, than they are about the vigor of teaching and spreading my Republic far and wide. Sometimes I wish I had a trade, like tile work, or stone work, something I could pick up and travel with and live far more simply. I could do that with Yoga and Martial Arts, I could do that if I got some books out, teach at low residency schools. Maybe I need to lower my sense of esteem and be willing to live on government assistance if need be until I get to that dream state?
Recently, VERY recently, I had a situation in the classroom (no school, no day, no class, no names mentioned) with a really ignorant student and it has since triggered some dialogue about what happened, and as this all has developed, I have been sticking to what is right, and my bosses have been very supportive, but I have also had a bit of, "oh please, take that class away from me, I deserve so much better in life than killing myself over a student who refuses to learn." It has been a short time of stress, a little fear, contacting a lawyer (I could easily sue this student), but also it reminds me of the day when, I was 27, fingers all broken, arms hyper-extended, my head swollen, I was living the martial arts life, and I just looked into a mirror one morning and heard, "this isn't who you're supposed to be, change course, and follow your heart," and I just gave up martial arts, sent in my college applications, and took up the study of philosophy and religious history, which led to nine years of academic bliss in subjects I loved. This week felt like I was close to that moment again. I have a meeting on Tuesday, I will go into it with a sense that "God is watching over me, nothing can harm me," and if being dismissed or fired, or even quitting is an option, than I will take up that path and see where it leads me. If I stay, then I stay and learn, really learn from this semester, do smart things with my money, and come the Summer, take enough work to survive, but not too much that I work all Summer long. If I teach more than three classes this Summer, than I clearly haven't really learned anything yet.
I've also been thinking it's time to look for a full time job again, something regular, something 32 hours a week, four days a week, one foot in some teaching (one class maybe), but something I can go to, show up at 9, leave at 4, and check completely out of when I'm not there. Or maybe I just need to really believe that the Universe, the Dao, God, is watching over me, and that there will be four classes each semester, and there will be three in the Summer, one online during the year, and those will suffice until I really push through to where I need to be with my life.
Now, to name out loud what I want, when I want, and make it happen.
As we used to say in Indonesian Martial Arts: "Om Awignam Astu!" May there be no hindrances.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for all the work I have, all the job opportunities, the great students I get to work with, and by the time April 22nd rolls around I will have made $30K this year already (on pace for a $70K year as an adjunct), this is exactly what I wanted to manifest, but you know, in Portland, I made about $300 a week, I was usually cash poor, starving, too poor to do Yoga, and a hot date with Laura meant $20 between a movie and a meal, and I think I was a lot happier, I felt a lot more free and like life was mine.
These days, I teach, I answer emails, I lesson plan, I grade, I revise, and I have exactly 6 hours to sleep, 1 hour to eat, 1 hour to clean up, each day. Sixteen hours of each day, five days a week (8 hours on another day) belong to work. I get one day off, and even then, I'm grading, emailing, dealing with work stress, compensating for chores undone. Odd thing is, the more money I make, the more I seem to go into debt. In Maine, I had one Credit Card worth $300, now I have $3000 in credit cards, all maxed, I owe the IRS money from my job teaching military (I ended up being treated like a general contractor, to my surprise, at the end of the tax year), my apartment is filled with books I have no time to read, I have a mandolin that I LOVE that I have no time to dedicate to, I have a Yoga membership I have no time (and no energy) to use, a wife and cats I don't see enough, and I know that I'm grinding purely for the sake of grinding: I've become a grinder, in the sense of the gambler, just squeezing out a living between debt and survival, grinding low, grinding high, and not doing the things I should be doing with my life. I think my health and weight, both in a lot of trouble these days, are a sign that I have reached some sort of crisis point. As the lead character says in the movie, Rounders, "But if you're not careful, your whole life can end up one big fucking grind."
I have a few video feeds that I do watch on YouTube, that I catch up on when I can, and one of the messages I keep hearing from them is how they had lives that bogged them down, then they made the leap, they just walked away from the grind, they went poor, they followed their heart, and 3-4 years later they now have successful YouTube careers, successful careers doing what they want to do with their lives. Maybe they aren't making as much money as I do, but they look and sound so much happier and healthier than I am these days.
Can life really be so simple that you believe in your dream, you trust in the dream, and it will carry you through to where you need to be? I mean, of course it can: that's how I got from an unhappy marriage to an unfeeling and abusive person, to freeing myself, rebuilding my career, getting married again, but you know, that whole journey scared the daylights out of me, and when I was poor, I was constantly scared how I would pay my bills, what I would do in case of an emergency. There is also a lot of fear in being an adjunct: you take up all the jobs you can because you never know if the next semester there will be a lack of jobs.
I was recently reading that crucial to Wittgenstein's Theology, something that I have been WRESTLING with as of late, but crucial to it, is the idea, the belief that one lives in a world, absolutely protected from harm and failure from an all-loving God. I don't think, since my days at BU, I have felt that there was an all-Loving God watching out for me. When I left Seminary, when I left Theology, a strong faith survived, it got more esoteric, more mystical, and in many ways it was more like James' idea of "super-sensual," but it was also a strong mystical faith at the ravages of a world where God had simply just walked away. In my martial arts days, one of my Daoist martial arts instructors told me, "If you give your life to the Dao, it will watch over you, and you will never have to want or worry again." There was a similar idea in Yoga, when I did Ashtanga, that if you gave your life to Siva, to being a Yogi, it would carry you through on your journey: it got me all the way to India before I realized I wanted love more than I wanted Yoga. When I gave up on Yoga, it gave up on me, same thing with the Dao, same thing with my yearning to be a priest, same thing with my mysticism that ran a dry well the last two years as my philosophy grew more intense.
But this all makes me wonder, makes me think, what if I gave it all to the sense of "me" that I want to be? What would that look like? Who would I be? I LOVE teaching, so teaching isn't the problem, but how much I'm teaching is, and the fact that I am giving my life to students who are taking classes and learning from me so that they can move on, they can live their dreams, when I myself am not moving on, heading onto and into new things, is a real problem.
Today I had this bit of a dream day. I have a long weekend (my last until March), but I got 8 hours of sleep (I rarely get more than 4-5), I had a healthy Vegan breakfast, I played my mandolin for an hour, I practiced my French for an hour, I wrote for an hour, I spent quality time with the cats (still am), got to snuggle with the wife, did some chores, did some Tai Ji, and I'm sure if I had planned my meals and time better, I could have gotten in some Yoga as well. Even now, I am getting in more writing! Minus some wasted fatty calories I consumed when Laura first went to go visit her mom for the night, this has been a pretty perfect day. Everyday could be like this, it could even be better, so why don't I make it so? The money? The fear? They are so intimately related I don't know how to separate them.
I was thinking about how much I needed to make, at minimum, to live, and still have a life.
Once I paid off my credit cards, paid off my tax debt, I could live on $1800 a month, which is $21,600 take home a year, about $30,000 a gross a year. This would mean no using credit cards, no vacations that aren't nearly free, but it would mean making only $13,000 a semester (plus $5000 in the Summer), not $30,000, which would mean teaching 3-4 classes in Fall and Spring, 2-3 in the Summer, even teaching a minimum of 8 classes a year would make me $32,000, well within my minimum range. If there is any incentive to scale down my life, teach less, have more free time, it would be to have the time again to get into a regular diet and yoga focus again, the time to knock out that first novel (or two) and establish the life I was want to live.
Big confession here from my teaching the last three years: I'm done trying to impress anyone anymore, done not feeling like I get the recognition I deserve from my teaching. I produce great students, I have a brilliant mind, I have great degrees from #1 ranked Universities, and maybe this over-doing of the teaching is also about dragging the canoe across the desert of my feelings of worth, than they are about the vigor of teaching and spreading my Republic far and wide. Sometimes I wish I had a trade, like tile work, or stone work, something I could pick up and travel with and live far more simply. I could do that with Yoga and Martial Arts, I could do that if I got some books out, teach at low residency schools. Maybe I need to lower my sense of esteem and be willing to live on government assistance if need be until I get to that dream state?
Recently, VERY recently, I had a situation in the classroom (no school, no day, no class, no names mentioned) with a really ignorant student and it has since triggered some dialogue about what happened, and as this all has developed, I have been sticking to what is right, and my bosses have been very supportive, but I have also had a bit of, "oh please, take that class away from me, I deserve so much better in life than killing myself over a student who refuses to learn." It has been a short time of stress, a little fear, contacting a lawyer (I could easily sue this student), but also it reminds me of the day when, I was 27, fingers all broken, arms hyper-extended, my head swollen, I was living the martial arts life, and I just looked into a mirror one morning and heard, "this isn't who you're supposed to be, change course, and follow your heart," and I just gave up martial arts, sent in my college applications, and took up the study of philosophy and religious history, which led to nine years of academic bliss in subjects I loved. This week felt like I was close to that moment again. I have a meeting on Tuesday, I will go into it with a sense that "God is watching over me, nothing can harm me," and if being dismissed or fired, or even quitting is an option, than I will take up that path and see where it leads me. If I stay, then I stay and learn, really learn from this semester, do smart things with my money, and come the Summer, take enough work to survive, but not too much that I work all Summer long. If I teach more than three classes this Summer, than I clearly haven't really learned anything yet.
I've also been thinking it's time to look for a full time job again, something regular, something 32 hours a week, four days a week, one foot in some teaching (one class maybe), but something I can go to, show up at 9, leave at 4, and check completely out of when I'm not there. Or maybe I just need to really believe that the Universe, the Dao, God, is watching over me, and that there will be four classes each semester, and there will be three in the Summer, one online during the year, and those will suffice until I really push through to where I need to be with my life.
Now, to name out loud what I want, when I want, and make it happen.
As we used to say in Indonesian Martial Arts: "Om Awignam Astu!" May there be no hindrances.
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