Stuck

There are way too many things happening at the same time, and yet none of them are getting done - not really. I have a distinct feeling of being spread too thin (no pun intended regarding my girth), and yet, the results elude me. Day in and day out, I put in the hours, and somehow, I do not feel the jubilation that comes from having completed something. And I muse over the idea that I am not putting in the effort in the proper places. I am not utilizing my time in a smart manner.

It has been exactly an year since I joined NSU - almost to the hour. A year has flown by. My list of accomplishments for the last year would read something like this:

• Have become a father - My son is the apple of my eye. And yet, does this count as an achievement?
• Survived an year as a Lecturer - well, I survived. More like scraped by. It is not the glorious sort of thing that I can brag about.
• And?

So it is a pretty short list. And a dubious one at best. I miss my school days, when each year, you would get promoted to a new class. It was plenty clear what you were out to do - it was spelled out nicely in front of  you. However, now that I am done with those years, there is an ocean of choices that lie in front of me, with nobody to hold me back. They call it freedom, right? So I drifted, from a shipping company to a soap making company, to an ad firm, to a sweater factory, to a university. What does that make me? To the rest of the world, I would say that I have been in training, throughout my career, so I could one day become a great teacher. But at night, with my head on the pillow, it is a very different scenario. I have a hard time selling myself the story I tell others. I beg myself to believe, and yet, my mind begs to disagree. I have spent half my life, and I still do not know what I want to be doing 2 years from now. When I juxtapose myself against my friends from undergrad years, I see myself as a lost soul.

Pulling oneself together is proving to be a very difficult stance. I have been telling myself that "This is it!" for the last 2 semesters - I am going to be a teacher. But in this, I am a newbie. It is not only teaching students in a class - there is a lot more to this profession. I need to pen some articles (read tons more before I can even begin), start attending seminars and symposia, etc. I feel like a misfit among my peers, who are all so much more well-read and versed. I feel like a trickster who is out of depth in their debates.

I need that push. I know that nobody is holding me back - but that is not the issue here. I need somebody to push in headlong into this thing, so I know there is no turning back. I need to grow that conviction, that teaching is not just another fad that will cease to define my job in a few months or years.