There's the question. Why shouldn't I?
Because you matter,
@Matan .
And because what you do matters.
The big things. But also the small things.
We don't all get to move mountains. But we do all, every day we interact with the world, have effects on that world. We get to choose how we act and therefore choose whether the effects which we have on the world will be positive or negative. This matters!
Can I ask you something? How do you find strength and motivation to keep pushing
I used to teach a pre-choreographed group exercise class. (Meaning that someone else developed the choreography, four times a year, which I then memorized and presented to my classes.) Teaching this class was a shit job. Seriously shit. The pay was shit. And it was only ever for one hour at a time. Often I was asked to teach at clubs that were over an hour's hike from where I lived. And I was not paid for my travel time. I was expected to show up early for every class and stay late afterwards in case there were students who had questions. But I was not paid for my time talking with students before or after class either. Also, because my class was usually the last one of the day, and the classes before mine had a tendency to run over, my classes almost always started late and finished late, racking up even more expense on my time that I was not paid for. And of course I was expected to teach looking nice--not with my hair disheveled from the wind, or my clothing soaked with sweat or rain or sleet or snow or mud. So I also spent a bunch of unpaid time changing my clothing and grooming my hair before every class. This resulted in the actual cost on my time to teach a class ranging from 2 hours to 4 hours -- for which I was only ever paid for 1 hour! (And this is before you factor in all the time I had to invest--again unpaid--to learn new choreography 4 times a year. Or the fact that I had to purchase, four times a year, the training videos and the music necessary to teach the class--from my own employer, no less, who charged me
more money to ship the materials to me from an office literally one block away than I had previously been paying to a 3rd party distributor who had been shipping the materials from another country!. I also had to purchase my own batteries that were necessary to run the sound system in my employer's fitness studios.
Then my supervisors started pressuring me and my colleagues to start showing up for meetings that were also often far away for me and for which we were not paid. In one instance I informed my supervisors that I did not intend to attend one of these unpaid meetings because it was a very busy week for me at my full time job (the job that actually paid my mortgage--the shitty part-time job teaching fitness classes certainly did not!) My supervisors responded by threatening to fire me if I did not attend the meeting. This is illegal where I live. (Both the forcing employees to work without paying them, and the threatening them with reprisals if they refuse to do so.) And I said so. Which resulted in my supervisors' behaviour becoming even worse, with increased threats, increased bullying, deliberate attempts to isolate me from my other colleagues, and attempts to get me to rat on colleagues who also were unhappy with our supervisors' behaviour. (Threatening me because I called my supervisors out for their violations of Ontario law was itself a further violation of Ontario law.)
Still, I persevered. For three years.
I taught that fitness class for three years because it was meaningful for me to do so. Because I believed that my work, in teaching the class, had value.
Which it did!
I started teaching the class in the first place because it was a class that I loved, a class that had given value to me. Some of my closest friends are people I met through taking and teaching this class--people who are still my friends today, over two decades later. This is a class which helped me to build the highest level of upper body and core strength I have ever enjoyed and helped me to get into the best physical shape of my life. It's a class which taught me how to master fun and challenging yoga poses which I had never been able to do before. It's also a class which helped me to deal mentally with extremely challenging and stressful times in my day job. More than once when I was extremely wrung out and exhausted from my day I had gone to that class and left afterward feeling calm and renewed and centred. I appreciated all of the teachers who gave these benefits to me through teaching the class. And I wanted to do the same for other people.
So I did. I learned to teach the class. I gave the time necessary to do so. I put up with the BS from my employer. And I taught that class for three years. I watched my students grow stronger through taking the class. I saw the smiles on their faces when they mastered yoga poses they had never been able to achieve before. I listened to their stories of how much the class had benefited them, how much they enjoyed it, and how much it meant to them.
One night I showed up to teach my class on a day when we had had extremely bad weather all day. We are talking blizzard conditions. White outs. Heaps of snow. Roads had been gridlocked because the ploughs had not been able to get out. Businesses had been closed. Many classes all over the city had been cancelled because the instructors had not been able to get to the clubs they were assigned to teach at. But because I walked to work, I was able to get to my class. It wasn't a fun walk. But I was able to do it. So I did.
While I was waiting outside the exercise studio for the class before mine to finish, chatting with a couple of my regulars, a woman who had never attended one of my classes before approached me and asked if I was there to teach the next class. I told her that I was. And she burst into tears. This woman had been having the day of all days. She was exhausted. She was wrung out. She
needed that class that day to help her get re-centred and give her strength to face everything she needed to face. She had tried earlier in the day to take the class at two other clubs, and both times the class had been cancelled because the instructor had not made it to the club in time. She was so happy and so relieved that she was finally going to get to take the class she openly wept and hugged me and thanked me profusely. For doing my job.
This is what gives me strength and motivation to keep going. Because sometimes the world is harsh. But what we contribute to the world does matter. Even small things--like my showing up to do my shitty part-time job--matter. And often we won't know in advance (or maybe not even afterwards) how much it matters.
Not long after the incident with the woman who thanked me for showing up to teach my class in a blizzard, I wrote to the woman who choreographed the class that I taught. (A woman who I, and most of the other instructors who taught the class, idolized. Her choreography truly was brilliant and joyful and effective.) I told her how much her work meant to me, how it had helped me, and how I had now come full circle, learning to teach the program myself and help other people in the same ways I had been helped by my own teachers. The choreographer/program director was so moved by my letter that she recorded a personal message
to me at the start of the next training video (which was sent out to thousands of teachers of the program, all over the world)! Again, a small thing: I wrote a letter. And it moved someone who lives on the other side of the world, almost 14 thousand kilometres away.
@Matan if you are not seeing the ways in which you matter, I would encourage you to start keeping a Gifts & Blessings journal. You must write in your Gifts & Blessings journal every day, and what you must write is:
- One thing which you did that day which was a Gift which you gave of yourself to the universe. Your Gift can be big or small. It can be something you did for a specific individual--a person or an animal--or for a group or for the world at large.
- One Blessing which you received that day from the universe. Again, your Blessing can be big or small. It can be something a specific individual did that blessed you in some way, or help you received from an organization or other group, or a blessing from nature.
For example, for yesterday you could write:
Gift: I gave some time to talk to Laura about her frustrations re: not being able to work on pull-ups consistently, since she cannot use her door-frame pull-up bar in her new home, and the weather where she lives is quickly becoming unsuitable for her to continue using pull-up bars in outdoor parks. My suggestions helped Laura to realize that she has enough space now to get a free-standing pull-up bar for her home, and they're actually not that expensive. (There's even an affordable one that's on sale this week!) My Gift of my time and ideas will help Laura to continue with her strength training all winter. This is an important thing! Laura has to work hard to realize upper body strength gains and loses them quickly when she doesn't maintain her training. Helping Laura to stay strong and get even stronger will help her to remain healthy and happy.
Blessing: Today I did a workout which was developed by the Team at DAREBEE. I know it is important to my own health and well-being to remain physically active. But I am struggling these days and don't have the mental energy necessary to figure out for myself what workouts I should do. I am well Blessed by the DAREBEE Team putting the time and effort and expertise and other resources they do into developing effective workout plans, and making them freely available to me (and others) so that I can remain active without the need to think about it too hard.
(Your journal entries can be simpler than the above, if you prefer. Wordiness and over-explaining everything tends to be my thing. But these are just examples. You write whatever works for you, whatever helps you to see that you are, in truth, giving gifts and receiving blessings every day, that this work matters, and that the struggle is worth it.)
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then maybe I change passion completely.
from
for you.
