To Be Successful Sometimes We Have to Let Go

5 hours into a marathon feeding session and I am practically in tears; how will I ever satisfy this child with what I have? Oskar and I have been at it since 10 PM and the clock ticks dangerously close to 3 AM and yet he won’t sleep, all he wants to do is eat and be held, and this parent of 3 is at her breaking point. As I feel the panic rise within me I realize that this is exactly why there is formula, why we have an alternative when we feed our babies, and so I calm myself down, take a deep breath and try to push the guilt away. Sure, this is not ideal, it certainly is not the natural parenting I had envisioned, but right now Oskar is screaming bloody murder and I need to stop the guilt, get with the program and get over myself. Having twins means making a lot of changes, and sometimes realizing that my idea is not what is best at that time.

As teachers, we need to sometimes let go of our own ideas as well. We need to realize that the program we have envisioned, trained for, and perhaps even used before, may not be the program that will work this year. The program that we have so loved, eagerly anticipated, may just not work with this group of kids. So letting go of our own foolish pride becomes priority number one. Letting go of what we thought would be the right thing to do becomes of utmost importance. Once we have let go, we can start to work on acceptance and figuring out where to go from here.

Sometimes our plans and our desires don’t work the way we want them to. Sometimes we have to let go of what we thought would work, we have to let go of what we envisioned. That doesn’t mean we are sacrificing ourselves or our ideals, but rather that we are working with the kids instead of forcing them into our idea of them. In the end, that is what great teaching is all about; working with the students you are given and not the students you had envisioned. So hey, it’s ok to let go.