Disappointment

Jun 28, 2020

Experience is the best teacher – at least, that is what I’m hoping. In fact, I’m counting on it.

Around mid March I started losing my voice daily, despite the fact I wasn’t speaking nearly as much, with my presentations stopping due to the pandemic. After several doctors, we found the problem. I have a polyp on one of my vocal cords. And unfortunately, it’s right between the two cords, preventing them from connecting – thus, the sound production problem. So, I’m on vocal rest to see if we can get the polyp to shrink.

I believe handling disappointment appropriately is probably the hardest social skill for many students to master. I understand. The struggle is real. Of course, I could justify that I don’t just WANT my voice back- I NEED it to do my job, but the reality is that I have everything I need. If anything, I need to back off on the speaking engagements, as evidenced by my current problem.

We are all being challenged in some way right now having to deal with a myriad of disappointments. My suggestion is to focus on the blessings we have that we take for granted (our health, family, a roof over our heads) rather than on all the small things that are not just the way we want.

I’m not certain what lies ahead with regard to my speaking engagements, but one thing’s for sure – I’m getting a lot of experience dealing with frustration, which I hope will help me better empathize with kids when they are doing the same. Perhaps one silver lining of the Covid 19 cloud will be that we all come out of this better able to understand, and thus, help our students accept disappointment appropriately. It’s an important skill, and one, I believe, we could all learn from on a daily basis, especially given our current health reality.

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