Last week was my last week teaching. For reasons outlined in my previous post, as well as many professional reasons, I felt it was necessary to step away from full-time teaching and focus on other endeavors.
It was a difficult choice to make. My mental state made it hard to believe I was doing the right thing: I was abandoning the students who needed me and the students I knew I could help. I brought them things they had never experienced and never seen before. And I was leaving them to pursue personal interests and money. I was leaving them behind for filthy lucre.
However, there is something to note. I needed to take care of myself. The more time I spent at school teaching, not being prepared, and not able to succeed as I envisioned I should, the more I would have spiraled downhill.
I asked myself all the questions you would have: can you stick it out another semester? You’re teaching all the same classes, doesn’t that make it easier? You’re leaving a consistent paycheck for an unknown future. Why?
To those I say, I considered them all. I included the knowledge that I wasn’t my intellectual best and asked those around me who knew my struggles for guidance. I prayed and pondered and felt I was making the right choice.
I investigated jobs that would be more consistent. For now,that’s not the way I need to go. (I have a potential job offer outstanding, and that might change things; however, I would have to be strongly inspired to know it was the right choice.
For now, I am where I am. For now I am balancing the passion of video games with the creative desire to build a company and a brand.
I have a partner. I have support in the business, and I have someone I can lean on when I don’t have the ability to drive the business forward.
More importantly, I have Partners. I have a Savior who understands my individual struggles. I have a Father who knows what I need to develop into a Son of character and success.
I keep them in mind as I move forward in faith. For that is the only path to true success.