Despite my faulty memory to the contrary, Fall Term always starts out with a bang and keeps its foot firmly on the gas pedal. Those well-rested feelings from the summer last approximately 48 hours in a good year, replaced quickly by the franticness and panic that is the ten week academic term. Before the term starts, it seems, I am already behind — yes, even with the extra bonus week we got before classes started this year, thanks to a very early Labor Day and a very late Thanksgiving.
I expected going in that this fall would be a bit more frantic than usual, with my new part-time administrative position. But things have also been, frankly, chaos on the home side. Fall is middle school girls swim season, which means 6 intense weeks of daily practices for the 7th grader starting the first day of school, and 5-ish meets (2 this week, whee!). It’s all over at the end of this week, but it effects the rhythms of the entire family. Fall is also cyclocross season for my partner, which pretty much means races every weekend, and lots of moving pieces to get everyone where they need to be. On top of everything else, the 3rd grader has some new additional diagnoses in his cocktail of special needs, and thus the transition back to school for him has been … less than ideal. There are days where I’ve used up all of my cognitive/emotional/coping resources by 8am … and I still need to put in a full day at my day job as well as the evening second shift that is parenting.
Sigh. I’m exhausted, and it’s only Week 4 of the term.
The other day, a colleague I hadn’t seen in a while asked how I was doing, and I replied, “I’m doing the best I can, and that’s all I can hope for right now.” And it hit me: THIS needs to be my mantra, my theme for the academic year:
Doing my best.
At the start of every sparring match we do in taekwondo (we spar at the start of every class), we look our opponent in the eye, shake their hand, and say “Do your best sir/ma’am”. We don’t say, “Spar perfectly.” We don’t say, “Perform at the same level you did the day before.” We say, “do your best” as a way of acknowledging that we’re in different places each day, we have different needs and pressures each day, and our only ask of each other is that we bring whatever our best is today to the match. We execute, and learn, from wherever we are.
I want to do this in everyday life. I’m not in the same mind space everyday, and neither are those around me. The way I live should acknowledge this fact.
Doing my best means extending myself some grace on the mornings where the 3rd grader tantrums from the time he gets up until he gets on the bus, and being ok with moving priorities around to focus on those that don’t require as much mental energy.
Doing my best means continuing to take professional risks, whether that’s sending out a paper before I feel it’s “ready” for review, or taking a possibly unpopular stand and pissing people off, because those risks are meaningful to me, and being ok with whatever outcome happens.
Doing my best means being thoughtful about the priorities I set and the activities and tasks I chose to pursue, and chose to let go. And about communicating my boundaries effectively and compassionately to others. (And respecting the boundaries of others!)
Doing my best means being willing to play the long game in terms of fostering the changes I want to see in my institution and department, so that I have the resources and people on my side that I need when I decide to push for a specific change.
Doing my best means being honest, with myself and with others, about my reservoir of resources, capitalizing on my high-energy days and retreating/reflecting on low-energy days.
Fall term is still going to be chaotic and frenzied and often panic-inducing, but this term and in subsequent terms, I can always do my best. That is something I can always control, no matter what life throws at me.
How will you do your best this academic year?
This is what a computer scientist looks like 