Over at her blog Words on the Word, Audre Myers posted a piece yesterday entitled, simply, “Life.” It’s a succinct and effective little piece about how Life often disrupts our, well, lives, and how our best-laid plans are often thrown out the minute Life demands our immediate attention.
The past several weeks have been full of Life for yours portly; indeed, this school year—which seems to be dragging endlessly onward—has been one of the toughest of my career. It got me thinking about this post from last May about the difficulties and joys of responsibility.
We all find ourselves busy at times, and I imagine many of us dream of shirking our responsibilities. The sad fact is, many Americans do—the moment anything becomes inconvenient, or no longer offers the fun thrill it initially did, we move on to something else new and exciting. There’s an inherent restlesness in that lifestyle, a lifestyle of constant pacing and chasing.
That’s the child’s response to responsibility and difficulty. As adults, we should adapt to difficulties, and bear our responsibilities cheerfully, even when they are more burdensome than usually—perhaps especially so at those times.
As I noted last year, most of our perceived problems either dissipate into mootness or are otherwise resolved before they truly become problems that need addressing. Case in point: I was slated to teach an online class this summer. That’s not a problem so much as an opportunity, but it was going to require a good bit of legwork this week to get the course ready to launch Monday.
I got home Tuesday evening to take a look at the course, and realized it had either been purged (due to low enrollment) or given to another instructor (likely a full-timer who needed to make his hours). While I’m a tad disappointed about losing out on some relatively easy money, it’s also “solved” a problem for me—finding the time to put that course together during yet another busy week.
Again, another problem resolved before requiring any real effort on my part—perhaps not on anyone’s.
With that, here is 5 May 2021’s “Heavy is the Head“:
The Portly Politico 