The
Quenchable Fire
by
Michael Scott Karpovich, CSP
I remember my first education class at college. Thanks to an energetic teacher named Dr. Ken Wahl, all of us "teacher wanna-be's" became enthralled with the profession of teaching. He shared his passion for education and helped us to define our own. We were excited about teaching hungry young minds. Some of us were inspired by teachers we had in the past; others just loved working with children. And most of us were dedicated to making a difference in our world. That class changed the direction of my life! Everyone seemed to leave it with this passion for education, a passion within each of us that was an “unquenchable fire.”
I look back on those days now and see them differently than I did then; I am ashamed to say I am almost cynical. When I see that first-year teacher or that new counselor come into a school filled with fresh enthusiasm, I roll my eyes.
I know I am not alone. As I
travel around the country speaking to school staff, I encounter it around every
corner. When a new teacher responds to a comment with an optimistic
outlook, other teachers laugh, elbow each other and say , "First-year
teacher." The new teacher then
laughs uncomfortably, obviously wondering
what he or she said wrong. Eventually,
much like the first grader who learns it is not always wise to raise your hand
to volunteer, that teacher learns to share our rage.
We all seem to feel rage that we were never prepared for all the stress and pain we encounter in school. We feel rage that education is not always rewarding. We feel rage when we discover that “making a difference in our world" is so very lonely. School and social service staff feel rage at the overwhelming expectations that the system shoves on their shoulders. We feel rage when we discover that our "unquenchable fire" of passion for education was quenchable after all! This rage is sometimes expressed as sadness, hopelessness, or, more often, being just plain tired. When we feel these feelings long enough, we experience burnout.
Many of us were never taught how to preserve our passion for education; instead, we were taught to sacrifice. If we are not willing to sacrifice time and energy, we are told that we are selfish or that we "simply don't care." It has been almost subliminally suggested that if we are selfish enough to take care of ourselves, we obviously don't really care about children.
This certainly sounds atrocious, yet it is the common mindset for those of us working in human service professions, including social work, nursing, counseling and education! It is an unspoken expectation that we should be willing to sacrifice personal, family, and recreational time to the good of the cause. Many teachers cannot fathom not taking work home and spending several hours grading papers and preparing lesson plans. Surprisingly, many counselors and therapists will give out their home phone number to clients. It all comes down to guilt; so many of us feel guilty if we do not give ourselves unconditionally to our work.
Taking care of ourselves is difficult when we have been told that we are
supposed to take care of everyone else. The best example I've heard of this
all-too-common mindset is when I was speaking on preventing burnout at a
teachers' conference in Pennsylvania. A
teacher came up to me later, insisting that success in a school setting demands
sacrifice. 
"School
learning can't take place if teachers are not prepared to give themselves to the
job," she said. She added that she belonged to more school and community
committees than any other teacher and that she willingly worked many of her
Saturdays at a weekend child-care event. She
obviously felt my suggestion that teachers should take care of themselves
challenged her entire lifestyle. Realizing that perhaps this woman got her needs
met by her over-involvement, I asked, "Do you enjoy doing all that?" She responded, "Of course not; I hate it, but it is my job!"
I do not know this woman. Perhaps she is honestly contributing to all of her committees and other commitments. Perhaps she has found a way to sacrifice so much of her time and energy and still have something left over for herself and her family. All we can be sure of is that it is difficult to be healthy if we cannot separate ourselves from our job. Indeed, if we cannot give to ourselves, we will find it difficult to give to anyone else.
In a culture that labels self-care "selfish" or "uncaring," it takes courage for anyone to insist that the act of self-care is best for everyone.
Within this type of professional environment, establishing healthy
boundaries between a personal life and a professional life may feel
uncomfortable, especially when our peers' boundaries are vague and undefined.
Yet for the good of the students we work with, we need to preserve
ourselves for the time that we are there for them.
Eventually we all reach a point at which we realize that although we may
do several things well, we cannot
do all of 
them
well at the same time. You may be a
great teacher, counselor, administrator or coach; but if you are juggling all
these roles at once, you are probably not as great as you could be.
In setting boundaries and taking care of ourselves, we need to set
priorities, decide which aspect of our work we choose to be great at and then
set as many of the less important areas of our work aside.
We must realize also that it is impossible to encourage self-esteem in a student when we don't have a handle on it personally. Similarly, we cannot tell a student to "just say no" if we ourselves can't say no to destructive demands on our lives. Whether we are teaching or counseling, we must remember that the greatest lessons are brought home not by lip service, but by example. It is not likely that a child will set healthy boundaries when everyone around him or her cannot live the example of setting good boundaries.
Although preserving the "quenchable fire" that burns within us is difficult, it can be done. Here are five basic tools or activities that can help:
1) Find a place where you can practice being alone. This should be a place where you can pray or meditate uninterrupted, a place where you are unlikely to be distracted by television, radio or even reading material. Feeling comfortable with solitude does take practice because so many of us are uncomfortable without some stimulation. Simply start with five minutes without sound or distraction. For one month, enjoy a planned time of silence sitting or standing (not lying down) for five minutes every day. After that month, increase your time to 10-15 minutes. Plan to eventually spend 15-30 minutes in calm silence each day.
2) If you must bring your work home, designate a specific place to do it. A home has many natural healthy boundaries; the names of the rooms themselves suggest the purpose of the rooms. Think of it.... the kitchen is for cooking, the dining room is for dining, the family room is for family, and the bedroom is for... well, use your imagination. The point is, these places in your home have their purpose. If you choose to grade papers or write lesson plans in the family room or the bedroom, you are likely taking time and energy away from important relationships, including your relationship with yourself. If you cannot find a room that you can designate for your home work, simply designate a desk. This spot would be reserved specifically for when you choose to work at home; in designating it for that purpose, you set a healthy boundary for yourself and those close to you.
3) Give yourself gifts. For example, go to your local florist and order flowers to be delivered to you at work. Sign the card "For all the good work you do -- Your Secret Admirer," and ask the florist to deliver it in the future. An ideal time to plan on receiving flowers is when you know you will experience a lot of stress at work. Many people will choose to skip this exercise simply because it is embarrassing in this culture to give to ourselves. Then again, maybe that is why we hurt so much; we can more easily take care of someone else rather than ourselves.
4) Schedule some time for yourself as an appointment. On each day of your calendar, write times you reserve for yourself as a "meeting." For example: Monday, 4:00 to 5:30 - meeting. Do not write that it is a meeting you have with your own children or a meeting you have with a good book, just write the word "meeting." This way, when someone wants you to commit to another event, you simply pull out your calendar and say, "Sorry, I already have a meeting scheduled at that time." The purpose of this exercise is not to get you to be tied to a calendar, watching the clock to see when your time begins and ends. It is simply a tool that reminds you to take time for yourself and makes it a little easier to say no to misunderstanding colleagues. Once after speaking at the Southwest Student Assistance Conference in 1992, I was approached by a counselor who said that when a professional peer asks for yet another time commitment, she simply pulls out her calendar and, showing a fully committed schedule, asks, "Which one of these do you want me to cancel?" For her, it proved extremely effective.
5) As educational consultant and author Kathleen Bishop always says, "Give things meaning." One of the biggest reasons our professions are so full of burned-out professionals is that we forget all the good experiences we have had. Kathleen suggests that we write letters to ourselves or write in a journal when something good happens. We always assume that we will never forget a great experience; but once a painful experience rears its ugly head, we often forget the great event and focus on the bad one. Kathleen also recommends using symbols to remind us of what it is all about, to remind us about the “fire” that keeps us going.
If you choose to take care of yourself, you will undoubtedly do more good in this world for the causes you believe in than if you continually sacrifice, burning brightly for a few seconds and then fizzling out like sparklers on the Fourth of July.
When we are courageous enough to care for ourselves, we are not surrendering nor are we being selfish or weak. We are simply preserving our "quenchable fire" -- the fire we need as both the pilot light and fuel for the passion that makes our lives livable and a service to all humankind.
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