Stopping

I find Boice’s chapter on stopping interesting. I’m still learning to balance teaching and my own studies, and teaching seems to be taking a lot more of my time than I would like. I feel like I spend every free moment trying to improve my lecture notes, thinking of classroom activities, or just complaining about the fact that I still don’t feel competent as an English composition instructor.

I just need to stop. When my plan for the day is finished (and probably better than I’d allow myself to admit), I should step back and work on something else. Or nothing. I can only improve so much, and I intend to work on realizing that that’s OK. And doing nothing sounds more and more appealing as the weeks go by.

I generally have no problem saying no when someone asks me to do something unpleasant, but I have trouble telling it to myself. Thankfully, I haven’t really been asked to do anything beyond teaching and studying yet, but I will definitely point to page 52 in the Boice book if someone tries to make me do stuff. I’m just not yet at the point where I can do much more than I’m doing now. Boice says it’s OK, so I’ll go with his advice.