I turned and turned in my bed for last 30 minutes or so. I kept thinking of Jacob--the heel grabber, the one who would do anything to gain Isaac's inheritance, the selfish one. I kept thinking about his wrestling with God, how he would not let God go until He blessed him, and how he limped for the rest of his life as a result. I resemble Jacob in that I'm extremely self-absorbed, self-centered and self-pleasing (more like other-pleasing for sake of self-pleasing). But at the present moment, I feel like I am wrestling with God.
Almost everything seems turned against me. Work has become joyless for about a month now; gosh, I thought banking was lifeless, but this seems endlessly frustrating that all joy and rewarding moments are dessicated. My tiny apartment, kitchen and futon are finally getting to me. I am so thankful for my awesome girlfriend, but I don't want her to become my sole confidente. And friends...my blood boils when I think of how I have no time to meet my friends because of this job. And now, my parents have to be on my case and unknowingly hurt me emotionally. All of which has revealed the fragile infantile stage that I find myself in (again!) in my walk with God. My main source of joy over the past month has been TV shows, movies and video games, for they make me feel good, successful and happy.
All of these things have been on my mind sporadically, but they culminated in a shocking manner today when the words "shut up" slipped out of my mouth when talking to a student. It wasn't a yelling shut-up, but everyone in my class heard it and now I am going to address it with this speech below.
"Class, track me. I have a story I would like to share. So after I graduated from Harvard, I got a job as an investment banker, which pays really well--my first year, I earned pretty much twice as much as my parents has ever earned in one year, and having a lot of money, it was nice. I don't know about you, but my family, we didn't have a lot of money growing up, so I always wanted to get a job that pays well and this one surely did. I bought my family a house with a swimming pool in California, and I was enjoying having a lot of money, especially as someone so young. But even as my salary has doubled by the end of the third year in my old job, I just felt that my job was meaningless, and lacked joy. So I gave up 75% of what I used to earn, to come here and teach you all. I'm just trying to tell you that I, along with all teachers here at our school, am not teaching you just for money. Trust me, all of us can get more money at other jobs but we chose our job as teachers because of you. Yes, every one of you.
But over the past month, teaching has become joyless to me. The very reason why I came here to teach has disappeared, and at times, teaching you has felt worse than my old job which I left because it felt so lifeless! Some of you might have even sensed it.
When I uttered the words "shut up" to a student here yesterday, I became really sad. First, because I was thinking of saying "shut it", but the words "shut up" came out. Which told me that inside, I am really, really frustrated. When a student keeps talking out loud when I want silence for everyone during the exit ticket time, especially after I repeat myself 2-3 times, I get frustrated. Does that make my words okay? No, because then we would live in a world where people would hurt each other by saying all sorts of mean and unkind things. I apologized to that student already, but I want to apologize to everyone here because those are words that I would NEVER want to hear from you and yet I said those things. I will fix it for myself.
At the same time, I need to make sure that my days with you are not joyless and that what happened yesterday with a scholar NEVER happens with any of you. So here is what I pledged to do from now on: when I give corrections, I will not engage you and walk away. It is not fair to almost everyone in this room that my energy and our joy has to be wasted on bad choices and actions of a few. If you try to engage me, talk back, or keep on making poor choices, you will receive further consequences. I have had plenty of joyful and fun moments with all of you (yes, every single one of you), so I know each one of you are capable of making the right choices. It is when I choose to pay attention to a few who are making poor choices and leave almost everyone who want to learn hanging that teaching is becoming joyless. And I'm here, out of my comfortable job and lifestyle, for scholars who are making best choices for themselves."
P.S. Of course, even as I write this blog, a mosquito has to buzz near my ear and cause me to slap myself so hard that my head is now buzzing inside. I'm telling you, this is WWF-scale wrestling.
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