Changes

I am going through some changes.

The catalyst was an 8-day bike trip with my son—a full week free from day-to-day worries. It was the best vacation I’ve ever taken.

While touring, I thought of a thousand things to write about. Days were filled with wonder. We met fascinating people and relished in the majesty of nature. Our discussions were sometimes profound and sometimes silly.

By the end of the trip, an entire book was mapped out in my mind. I even developed a plan to write it all in one week (something which, if there was nothing else I had to do, I’m certain I could accomplish) and then put it up for sale. I could post a chapter a month (there were 12 chapters total in my plan) and offer the entire set as an e-book. As much time as I’ve spent working on my novel, my first book might as well be a whimsical trip down the rabbit hole with the boy who first made what’s mundane a miracle.

But my return home allowed me no time to write. I was completely bombarded with obligation, recouping from so much time spent free from it.

But that—my obligation—is going to change.

In my pursuit to be more than just a teacher—a pursuit well chronicled on this website—I have filled my cup to the brink. I think I take on more than I have to like I used to drink more than I should have. The filling of cups—both metaphorically and literally—are how I cope with the blistering conscience of existence.

The miracle of the mundane is the realization of daily magic. It is a mystical arithmetic: less yields more. And it took a week of living in the simpler joys to redirect my sights on what’s most important.

You see, I mistake urgency for importance all the time.

 Urgency feeds the gratifying impulse. I need to do most what I must do now. I have built a good foundation around that sturdy principle. But, as I stare at my 40^th birthday this summer, I must admit to myself what I already know: what I need to do is hold what is important to me as tenderly as I possibly can.

Living on teacher salary ain’t easy. My wife and I have taken on all sorts of side hustle to improve the quality of our lives. And then what happens—because we’re both hard-working, responsible, and stubborn—is we cling to the new roles we create for ourselves.

When trying to balance our books, it never makes sense to drop a stream of income. We need every penny because our kids are passionate about things. They are unique learners. We long to enhance their experience of the world—camps, travel, education. Our duties to them become this act of gratitude. It’s like praising God through sacrifice. God gave us good kids, and we then in turn have the privilege to work hard for them.

But life doesn’t balance in a book.

How many of you parents out there—teachers or otherwise—tried to budget for children? All it takes is one child to know that the best way to plan for kids is not to budget. That sort of plan will make you resent your kids. Having children will never make sense financially. They are a crippling fiduciary liability. It’s best just to have kids and figure it out later.

The mindset that allows a decision like that is rooted in love and trust. And it all does, in fact, work out.

So why not apply that mindset to all things you love? You could then trust that everything, too, will work out.

I have been telling myself that I’ll find the right time to leave my role at the city’s newspaper—a publication I helped launch. I’ve told myself that eventually someone will come along who could do the job and take ownership of the work the way I have.

Another reason I stick to it is the income, while modest, helps to provide that high quality of life I feel so obligated to give my children.

It took a week with my son to realize how terrible this reasoning is.

Why was it the best vacation I’ve ever had? Because I had no choice but to give my son the utmost attention. I wasn’t rolling out of bed to go out into the world and make money, I rolled out of the tent to build a fire to keep him warm in the chill of the morning. I don’t want to spend another decade worried about what I can provide for my family in the future. Give them your full attention now and the future will be decidedly good.

On the first night home for our trip, I lay awake in bed.

Instead of thinking of when a good time might come to walk away from the paper, I thought that I should walk away from the paper now because it gets in the way of my passion to be a good parent, a good spouse, and a good writer. It was the first time I tired on the thought and it fit perfectly. It became a decision as soon as the thought crossed my mind.

It makes no sense to leave behind salary wage when supporting a family of five inside the beltway. But God’s greatest gifts never made any sense to me.

God’s will has never come to me as my idea. It is the thing I accept as true without having come up with anything at all.

That mindset is the power of that amazing verse about how if one door is locked, another is open. And how if you ask, it is given. The greatest force in the universe is never at our hands it is in our souls. All we need is the courage and the faith and the trust to allow it to work.