“Life’s too short” is a very tired out cliché but it is one that rings true now more than ever.

Enjoy a blog post this week by the wonderful Daniel Duque. A friend of our founder Niamh McCrossan, he speaks about his own experience with struggling to know what makes him happy. I find it a very important topic as I often struggle to distinguish between what I want to do and what I feel I should do. It is a difference which must be understood by everyone in order to be able to make decisions which are best for them. As most people reading this are students the thought of our future and what it holds looms over us. Hopefully this article will help everyone see that it is an inward battle we all have.

Expectation and Happiness

Am I happy? I have spent the last few weeks really thinking about this question.

About what brings me joy and the joy that I get out of things that are expected of me.

“Life’s too short” is a very tired out cliché but it is one that rings true now more than ever for people living in today’s modern world. I have lived up until very recently, a life which has gone relatively to plan from my point of view; I did well in school, did well in college and got a decent teaching job. The next step in this plan was to have my contract renewed ensuring me permanency, this however wasn’t to be. Rightly or wrongly, I am now in a position of uncharted territory, where I am not quite sure what to do next with my life.

I received bad news regarding my job last May. Since then, I have spent the past two months thinking about what to do next. My head and heart have been pulling in different directions, but my thoughts can’t help but keep returning to the idea of what makes me happy? I had thought that teaching made me happy, but now I am less sure. Did I enjoy teaching? Did I just enjoy having something stable? Did I just enjoy being able to say that my life was going to plan? Or was I afraid to admit that I wasn’t finding happiness in what I was doing?

Regardless of what the answers to these questions are, I now have a clear path in front of me and it is one in which I have the power to decide what I can do next. Some aspects of teaching really made me happy such as seeing kids genuinely understand something that I am teaching them for the first time. On the other hand, there were many parts to it which I didn’t enjoy whatsoever. These negative aspects varied from disciplining badly behaved students to correcting endless amounts of mediocre essays and tests during points in the year. So what does bring me joy then if these things don’t?

I am a member of the scouts and it is the scouts which made me think that I wanted to be a teacher. I thought because I was really good at teaching kids things in scouts and thoroughly enjoyed doing so- that it would be similar in a classroom. Seeing kids in scouts enjoying themselves is something unrivalled in my opinion as it really does make me feel like I am doing something right with my life. There have been plenty of examples in the 6 years that I have been a scout leader, where I know that I have made a positive influence on a kid. There’s a thought in teaching circles that being that one positive influence on a child in their life can really impact upon them and enhance their quality of life. I strive to be that one positive influence on all of the kids with whom I come into contact with, be that through scouts or school. Being that one positive influence on a kid is something that really does make me happy and I must remember this when I am thinking about what to do next with my life. It is difficult though to think what to do next with my life when I will not be doing what I thought was expected of me.

What I am trying to convey here is that sometimes it is hard to deal with expectations that are put upon you, especially when you don’t meet those expectations. It is hard not to think that you are disappointing yourself and those around you when you don’t meet such expectations. For me, I feel like I am disappointing my parents. They put me through college and now this happens perhaps making college seem like a waste of time and money. I know though that this isn’t the case and I consistently remind myself of this. Everyone, including parents have dealt with disappointment at some point in their lives and they know that sometimes life isn’t going to be the way that you had hoped or expected it to be.

It is at these moments of disappointment in life that we must remember that every cloud has a silver lining. For me the silver lining is that I now have the chance to reassess where I am with my life right now. Which brings me back to my original point of “am I happy?” When I think about it, I don’t think I was happy with my career and the way it was panning out. I didn’t enjoy the paradoxical problem of being always tired coupled with sleepless nights. I didn’t enjoy the stress and the worry that I would have with some students. I didn’t enjoy feeling much younger than everyone else who I was working with. All of my colleagues were at completely different stages of their lives with concerns such as marriage and childbirth often at the centre of their conversations and these concerns are just not part of my life, or my near future for that matter. I have spent the last 3 years looking at various friends having fabulous adventures abroad travelling and living life as only someone who doesn’t have to think about mortgages, babies or saving for weddings and houses can. So I think now next year this is what I want to do, I want to live a little more and I would urge anyone in a similar situation to do the exact same. I know as the saying goes the grass is always greener but fuck the saying! I want to experience the grass first hand and experience some different life to the one that I am living now.

The life that I am living now is too old and mature for someone of my age and I really need a change of scenery. I am not quite sure yet what that scenery but that is ok too! I have time to think about plans and plenty of people around me to offer me advice which I will accept gratefully! I could go travelling for a bit, I could feck off to the other side of the country for a while, I could change career path altogether! Feck it, I could do all of the above, the point is that I will do what makes me happy and brings me joy, as opposed to thinking about what is expected of me and living life according to some predetermined plan!

Life will not always go as expected, but this is ok! Surround yourselves with people who truly care about you and think about what makes you happy. We must always try and find the silver lining in disappointment and thrive off of it. Strive always to do what makes you happy, and don’t be afraid to do something that is completely unexpected!

To a point, this is true but for the most part this isn’t the case. Kids choose to be in scouts, while it is compulsory that they go to school. This aspect is key as kids choose to do things that they enjoy, while generally the things that they have to go to ie. school, the dentist, etc. are things that they can come to detest.

by Daniel Duque