I guess I’m doing my Job

This blog post may be one of my most vulnerable and real.  This year I became a teacher, and I have certainly learned a lot. (A blog post coming later about that.)  However, there was something that I have learned recently about myself that I don’t fully like, and I need to reevaluate this.  This is the fear of people not liking me, and the hatred of people being mad at me.  

To preface this, I have never liked when people don’t like me.  I don’t want to say this to sound like I am cocky, but I am usually a person that people like or at least get along with. For the most part throughout school, I got along with everyone in my high school, and I would always have great long conversations with most of my teachers.  (Because of this, I was often late to my other classes because I was talking to the teacher before. I would then fix this, of course, with talking to that next teacher after class. I had to make sure I got to talk to them the same amount as well. 🙂 ) Then when I went to college, I made a lot of friends, and I especially got along with most of the professors that I had.  

Then in college, I took the Strengths quest survey, and I found out that my third strength is Harmony.  I care about keeping the peace and care about not having too many arguments. This, as a whole, is a positive thing, but it is also very hard when people are upset with me.  However, in this last year, I was reminded that through being a teacher, there is going to be someone who doesn’t like you. Actually, there is going to be a chance that more than one person is going to dislike you.  This is a normal part of life.  

There are times when I need to give a detention or get upset with one of my students, which I hate.  Although I love my students, and I do love my students. However, when they make a mistake, I need to fix that mistake.  I need to help lead them to the direction of being a kind, responsible, respectful, and successful student and eventually person. Yes, it feels awful for me when I have to punish a kid or get upset with a kid, but also at the same time it wasn’t my innate choice to be mad at them.  My choice was to teach them, show them kindness, and help them succeed to their best ability. Sometimes teaching them does mean setting high expectations for them, so that they know they aren’t supposed to say something when it is hurtful or inappropriate or when they do something that is destructive or disrespectful.    

This year, again as my word of the year, Freedom, I need to be willing to accept when people don’t like me.  I need to accept that at the end of the day, it does not matter nearly how much people like or see me, but it is how Jesus sees me.  There is few verses in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, that discuss this mindset. Including, in Galatians 1:10, “Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.”  At the end of the day, I am teaching because I love God and I want to show that love to others. I want to show that love to my students so much, but sadly sometimes that means having to teach them lessons. I should not care so much about being the cool teacher or the popular teacher.  Granted that would be nice, but it is so much more important to me to be the Godly and loving teacher, even when that does include the elements of tough love.  

Another verse that warns against the care of man over the care of God is Proverbs 29:25.  “It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you, but if you trust the Lord, you are safe.”  I love my job, but my second guessing decisions and feeling bad about having to get upset at students has not been healthy for me at all.  It has created a great deal of stress that has led to anxiety and stomach issues. I need to focus on the freedom of being the best that I can be and in the end that is the best I can be.  I can’t get wrapped up in the small decisions. It has been very dangerous if at the end, I forget the main reason that I want to be a teacher is to serve God as opposed to man.