R – Dan Sovetsky is my colleague at York High School and we went out to get a quick bite after his concert a couple of nights ago. We were both in a reflective mood as we talked not only about the concert but about our music program and how it’s morphed over the last 15 years since we started working together. Invariably, it led to conversations around our perspectives about our jobs.

I was mentioning to Dan that I noticed earlier in the day that his desktop picture on his computer is a picture of his current concert band and how much he really seems to be enjoying working with them this year. He agreed. Dan seems to be enjoying his work with his band even more the last year and a half than ever before. It’s not that he didn’t in years past, not at all. But there’s been something different in his demeanor and approach to his students more recently. He noted that his current Freshman are just about the same age as his oldest daughter and it’s given him a perspective that he never had to this degree. He lives every day in that teenager’s world at home and his empathy for his students has not only become more acute, it really changes how he views them. It has been so cool to see him locking in even more with his kids at school as the years have gone by.

We talked some more and I was reflecting on being in my early/mid 50’s now. It’s been funny… I loved being in my 20’s but even more in my 30’s and yet even more in my 40’s. The professional impact of those decades has been a scaffold, each built upon the other. Through each I’ve gained perspectives and skills that have brought so much happiness to me. But now that I’m in my 50’s, it’s been very weird: it’s tough to think of continuing the scaffold because in my next decade I’ll be retired. The end. It’s not that I won’t stay professionally active in some capacity. But it’s going to be a new start, not a continuation of the trajectory I’ve been on since January, 1988. That’s a bit scary to me. I’ve always been restless – if not miserable – unless I have a next mountain peak to climb. How do I approach my career now? I still work hard, push myself to grow, etc, etc. But what should I be feeling during my day-to-day?

What I have found myself doing the last few years is spending more and more time reminiscing about “the good ol’ days” of my career. Dan and I were talking for instance about our truly incredible summers working at MSYM in Orono. To this day those weeks during the July months have been the happiest of my life. The kids, the environment, our colleagues, our time just hanging out at Pat’s Pizza. The beauty of those weeks is that, while I was in the midst of them, I knew in the moment how special they were. I really did. I was able to ride that wave for 15 straight summers and I loved every one of them. I have been looking back on my career the last couple of years reminiscing about other significant happy moments or events or years too. But there’s been one difference. I don’t think I honestly appreciated to the same degree how special they were while I was in the moment of them.

I’ve realized something this Fall. It’s that, with the wisdom of experience, there’s always going to be times that exasperate and frustrate you. There’s always going to be highs and lows. There’s always going to be trials and dejection in this profession. There’s no way around it. My scenario at York continues to be a genuine dream come true, but I obsess over the details every week and I get bogged down in them. I do so because I enjoy the challenge. I also do it because that’s my job (I don’t apologize for it). But I’ve come to realize this Fall that it truly – to a degree I never fully appreciated until now – is about perspective. I came across a meme yesterday that said something like, “you don’t appreciate the photographs… until they are all you have left.” Instead of making me sad to think about that, it reinforced my new understanding of how I want to approach my career for its remaining years. Simply put, every day, every week, every month, every colleague, every student, every class: appreciate it all in the actual moment. It won’t last. They won’t be around forever. The experiences and events you have will be gone soon enough. I’ve decided that I do not want to be guilty of not appreciating ALL of it as its occurring.

I think I wasn’t capable of realizing this until I was older. That’s too bad on the one hand, but I think it’s one of the gifts of becoming older on the other 🙂 Which current freshmen are the ones I’m going to be mourning losing three and a half years from now, and am I appreciating my time with them now? What days am I going to look back on and wonder how I didn’t see the good stuff in the middle of them? Am I going to keep putting my head down, churning forward, only to reflect on the happy moments down the road, or am I going to keep my head up enough to experience and appreciate those moments in real time like I did for MSYM? The choice is a clear one for me and it has already made a monumental difference for me since the start of school.

James Taylor has a line in a favorite song of mine that, “…the secret of life is enjoying the passing of time.” While I love the sentiment, it’s a bit too trite for me. I don’t always enjoy the passing of time. I don’t live in a Disney movie and I am not always thrilled in the moment. But instead, I think, for me, the secret of life is becoming more and more about appreciating the current time regardless. Perspective. Reminiscing about years past, former students and experiences, it’s all good. The proper perspective however is causing me to simultaneously recognize that every day I’m in school is a “good ol’ day” in and of itself. To appreciate it and love it (warts, frustrations, down moments along with it all) as it’s happening is going to spare me a lot of wondering down the road, “did I truly take it all in at the time it was occurring?”. My suspicion is that there are thousands of people much wiser than me who realized this long before I did. I don’t think this blog post is unearthing any great revelation. But it was neat to be chatting with my colleague Thursday night, both of us reflecting on how our perspectives have changed so much. And in every way, for the better.