You know, it’s amazing how predictable people are. The job market is pretty crummy right now. I have heard more people tell me this semester that I ought to be an English teacher than ever before. The argument goes something like this: One day, Kyle you’re going to realize how important stability is. You’re going to realize that it’s much safer to have a guaranteed 30K a year than to risk everything for a job that’s fun and pays well, but where you could actually get laid off. I just don’t get this mentality. I once knew a lady, who had an adopted daughter, who was unwilling to take a day off from her minimum wage grocery store job to apply for a job that paid twice as much.
Now, understand, I believe in stability. I understand that it’s necessary to prove that you have a steady income before you can get a loan to buy a car or a house. I understand that most places frown on faith in God as a form of ready capital. I even understand that it is necessary for a Christian to be able to demonstrate stability in their own personal walk in order to be a good witness. But, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread.” And, for that matter, “All things work together for the good of those who love Him and seek his commands.” There is a distinction to be made between stability in your actions, and fear of instability. Fear of instability leads to looking for stability in a place where it can’t be found: in your employer, or in the government. True stability comes from the God who ever watches over you, who wants to live inside of you. True stability is important, but to make it the number one priority in your decision making process will cause you to achieve something else: mediocrity.
In my own mind, at least mediocrity is one of the ultimate evils in the world. Mediocrity means fear. Mediocrity means a lack of trust in God and an insistence in achieving only what you know you can accomplish. Mediocrity means gradually giving up on goals, dreams and ambitions, giving up on a little bit of those things that God has given us to separate us from the animals. Mediocrity means taking the little setbacks in life as punishment, as a sign to stop, instead of as an opportunity, as a chance to learn and excel. I believe that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and seek his commands. In my mind, that means that everything always works out to my advantage. I always win. If, in any occasion, I completely and horribly fail, I believe that the Lord will so arrange it that I have an opportunity or a chance to learn, so that at the end of things I will be able to say that I could not have been so successful had it not been for that failure.
All that to say, I have no intention of becoming a school teacher. Not that I have anything against school teachers. I know some really great people who are, or plan to become, teachers. They have a divine calling to teach in school. I don’t. I love knowledge, and I love spreading knowledge, setting little hearts on fire. Some people have even told me that I have a gift of teaching. I plan to teach my children. But for me to teach in a classroom, as a kind of career…? My only motivation for doing such a thing would be a kind of fear. Life is hard right now. Next semester I’ll be going to school part time for the last nine credits of my degree. I’ll be living off campus in an apartment where half of the lease is covered by school loans, and the other half will have to be covered by a job I don’t have yet. I just earned the lowest grade I’ve ever gotten in a class since maybe grade school. (Same basic reason too: The final essay, worth 60% of the test was “What are the most important things you have learned in this class?” The professor was very lenient too. The only answer he wouldn’t accept was the one I wanted so badly to give: “This class was totally irrelevant.”) But I am confident that even now, all things are working out to my advantage. Once again, the righteous will not be forsaken, and His seed will somehow manage not to be out begging bread.
Our school internship/career office puts out a weekly newsletter of all the new job offerings in their database. In this week’s list, fully fifteen of them were clerical positions that required an undergraduate degree and several years clerical experience. Nearly all of them practically described my resume before I sent it to them. Perhaps clerical work sounds like a step down from teaching. It probably is. But if you want to be a businessman, you’re better off doing grunt-work at a business than a higher paying job somewhere else. The issue isn’t the money; the issue is the dream.
On a personal note: Having miserably failed my ethics exam and been completely blindsided by a music history exam, I was reminded yesterday why I am an English major. I drastically reduced the effort I put into the other classes in hopes of getting somewhere with this ethics class. The ethics class I still did poorly on. I went in completely blind to the Chaucer class. I don’t think I had even done all the required reading. I am absolutely certain I aced that test. God is good, and He gives us grace in unexpected ways.
Blessings, all!
KB
neumatikos 