I have always been a person who needs to use little psychological tricks or coping mechanisms to help me through difficult or unpleasant things in life. For example, I always use what I call the “Clock Countdown” when there are 12 days left of school before summer break. To put it simply, looking at the face of a clock helps me visualize the short time until I get a vacation. I know that sounds weird and probably doesn’t make sense. But physically seeing the numbers on the clock seems to help more than just telling myself, “12 more days, 11 more days etc…”
This brings me to something I thought about recently. I only have 5 years left to teach until I retire. Depending on your perspective, 5 years can be a short time, or a very long time. For me, five years seems like a really long time, so I came up with one of my little coping mechanisms to help. Everybody knows the dynamics of a five-day work week. Monday mornings are terrible. Wednesday is hump day. Thursday feels like “we’re almost there!”. Friday is always the best day of the work week. You get the idea. So, I have decided to equate my remaining five years of teaching to a five-day work week. In essence this year is like Monday, next year is Tuesday, and my last year of teaching is Friday. If I look at this way, this school year is one quarter finished, and it is currently mid-morning on Monday. I know “Friday” will be here before I can blink, and I am glad I am in the twilight of my career.
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