Everyone has an ultimate purpose in their life: maybe being happy, having a beautiful family of their own, being rich and popular, creating something truly beautiful or maybe changing the world, like I do. We all want something big while we're here. The top of our list. The thing we work for, strive for, dream about. I want to heal the world, as cheesy as it might sound. I want to help people, make their lives better, change their way of thinking, make them happy. Not just for now, but on the long term. I want to see people who love each other and who live a long, happy life. I know it might sound like a utopia in today's society, but when you're working as a psychologist, you can see that happening in bits and pieces of what you're trying to do. The problem is that working in a kindergarten has its perks but also its disadvantages. You can't see the kid on the long term. He graduates and he goes away. You don't know how much you actually helped. If you helped. Working with small kids is a neverending challenge. Today, they may be quiet, obeying and pay attention to what you want to teach them and know they actually learned something but tomorrow you might feel like an alien on a different planet and no matter how you try to make yourself understood, you can't do it. They just don't seem to want to listen. Because what they truly want is to PLAY. And it's all natural. Because they're KIDS.
I've had a feeling of helplessness lately. The feeling that makes you question your very existence. "Am I actually making a change here? Do I actually HELP or do I keep trying in vain and nothing changes? What should I do next? How should I take this failure?" But then I realized you can't change the whole world in a single day. God took 6 days to build it. He didn't rush. He simply took His time. So why should I? Why do I tend to fall into the parents' expectations of being a doctor who serves a pill that makes their kids perfectly adapted and well behaved? I can't do that no matter how hard I try and if I keep wishing for sudden, huge changes I will never see that. As a wise friend said recently, I might not change the world in the kindergarten but at least I put the kids in the right direction. And that helps too, right? The fact that they ALL want to jump on me, hugging me EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to visit them, the fact that they say "I love you, Dana" and "I'm so happy to see you" already gives me a feedback of a job well done. No matter how the kids actually perceive the help I wanted to give them. At least they show appreciation. Which means I'm not that far from what I actually wanted. I am making the tiniest differences in their small worlds, and I should be satisfied with THAT. I should accept that small changes are still changing the world. That doing the best I can with what I have NOW is good too. So, for a while now, I choose to give up on my performance anxiety and just keep doing what I do and be happy to see all my kids HAPPY. In the end, that's my ultimate purpose, right?
Mental self note: See the bigger picture! Don't get lost in the small details!
Hopeful,
D.
