Posts Tagged: preparing to teach

“NOT ENOUGH TIME”


Here is my journal entry from yesterday.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

I am feeling guilty because I am not as prepared to teach tomorrow’s Exegesis of Isaiah class I should be.  This is nothing unusual.  I live with a low-grade guilt about such things. Students think they have a monopoly on this feeling.  They are mistaken.

In fact, I never, ever, have enough time to do everything I want to do.  But is that necessarily a bad thing?

Perhaps not, though it often feels bad.

A friend of mine who spent several years in prison said that the worst part of prison was the boredom.  Lots of time, and nothing to do.

So, I can’t do everything I want.  I can’t prepare as much as I would like for the classes I teach.  I can’t spend as much time with my wife as I would like.  I can’t ride the Little Miami Bike Trail as often as I would like.  I can’t read as many books as I would like.  I can’t write as many blogs as I would like.  I can’t spend as much time weeding the flower beds as I would . . .  O, wait!  That may be overstating my frustration with time constraints.

Perhaps that too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time feeling should be celebrated, rather than mourned.  Maybe it is only when I chafe against my time constraints, that they handcuff me and cut into my wrists.  If I wear these time limitations loosely, as a reminder of my humanity and of my zest for life, then these limits may cease to be a curse.  Who knows?  They may even become a blessing.”

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