I just have a lot of feelings...

Do you remember being a kid and thinking about all the things you wanted to be that you now realize were utterly ridiculous? Like the days when we all thought we would be astronauts and firefighters? Or like that time I thought I wanted to be the literal Pope (Catholic school does things to you, man). Of course we all had those lofty ambitions, but as a kid I also had some very practical business ventures on the brain. In a hilariously embarrassing home video from my kindergarten graduation when asked what I wanted to do when I got older, I proudly announced that I wanted to work for Lucent Technologies – a company that was housed a few miles from my house. I had no idea what the company did, but I knew they gave out cool promo items on their tours, and that was enough for me. The company shut down several years later.

As we started to get older, pressures from all around starting to push us towards making more practical decisions about what we would do with our futures. School, we were constantly reminded, was a means to an end with that end being a career. Teachers, guidance counselors, our parents, and the world around us pressed us to start developing our skills, so that we could eventually figure out what it is we would do to support ourselves and become productive members of society.

I can remember around the time I got to high school that I started seeing my friends developing clear skillsets and talents that would translate into future careers. Many of my friends were strong in math and science and were starting on the trajectory towards their now very successful careers as engineers and architects. Others started to show promise in the area of business and marketing have since gone on to carve out truly impressive careers in the areas of business consulting, advertising, PR, and so on.

All the while, I was left wondering, of course, where would I fit in the world? What would I do? What was I passionate about?

I remember being concerned/confused because I really didn’t find myself developing a direction towards anything similar to my friends. My math skills were sub-par at best, I could get by in science, my spatial reasoning skills were nonexistent, and I certainly didn’t have a mind for business or marketing. So what would I do?

What I loved was literature, discussion, debate, discourse. I loved music and the way it could bring tears to my eyes. I loved sitting with a friend and talking through the expanse of human existence and our deepest existential fears. I loved bringing treats to a friend who was having a bad day and sitting on the swings at the park, just to talk things through. My friends had a talent for solving equations and I had a talent for feeling other people’s emotions as strongly as my own. I felt a little shortchanged with that, THB.

At the time, these things seemed frivolous in comparison to things like engineering, marketing, and business. I was good at having feelings, how would I turn that into a career?

When I got to college, I tried hospitality administration for a semester. I had worked in a restaurant throughout high school and figured maybe I could manage one someday. After my first semester, a very influential and lovely professor who taught my intro class for hospitality administration sat me down and told it to me straight. “I’m glad you’re here, and I think you could be great at this, but I don’t think you really want to do this,” he said. He was right. He encouraged me to think critically about what kind of work felt authentic to me and it became more and more clear that it wasn’t in the realm of business.

Over the next few weeks, I thought about a quote that inspires me to this day – it is from Howard Thurman who, amongst many other titles, was the dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University for over a decade:

Chills, right? That’s some good shit right there. What makes you come alive? In reflecting on that, I was reminded once again of my love for connection. In the realm of the practical, I had a sibling who had just finished college with a psychology degree who was struggling to find work in the damaged economy and so I steered clear of that path. I then thought about how literature always grounded me in the realm of connection and discourse and I decided to embark on my path towards becoming an English teacher.

In the midst of my college experience, I also discovered the Community Service Center at BU and it was then that I really started to put the pieces together. I had a heart for service. Nothing brought me greater joy than volunteering and using my time, skills, and resources to support others, no matter what the cause.

In spending more time at the CSC and meeting the incredible friends that I met there, I realized that there was a whole trajectory for my life that I hadn’t considered before. I knew human service work meant long hours, little pay, and so on, but I also recognized that it was the thing in life that truly made me come alive.

All of these realizations led me to apply for Teach for America at the end of my senior year at BU. I knew the program was controversial, especially in the education world, but in my mind, the program combined education and service in a way that was really appealing to me. And so I went for it.

My time as a corps member in Teach for America could warrant it’s own memoir, as the experience could for most of us who have gone through it. For the purpose of this conversation today, one of the most important lessons I have come to learn after reflecting on my TFA experience is the importance of self care, especially when working in human services. Of course, there’s a quote that captures the realization well:

I taught for three years. At the end of my third year, I was severely depressed, burned out, in extreme physical pain, and was overall left spinning wondering how I would pick up the pieces. I loved my students, I was committed to giving the best education possible, and I did everything in my power to take care of as many of their needs as I could. In the process though, I stopped taking care of myself. A mistake the ramifications of which were then physically apparent.

If I’m being honest, this is something I have always done. Growing up with chronically low self-esteem and a chronically less-than view of myself, I always put others before me. It was my way of “making up” for the things I was not. I figured if I just really took care of people and gave them everything they could ever want or need, they could look past my flaws and learn to accept me. Also, the more I focused on other people, the less I had to focus on myself and the issues I was experiencing in my own life. This is something I still struggle with today, but I have made a lot of progress with the help of my very patient therapist.

All of this leads me to today. I have been working at Lowcountry AIDS Services for almost 2 years now. I love what I do. I feel connected to what I do. I feel excited about my work and I feel good at what I do. I feel connected to my community and I feel that my job affords me the opportunity to connect with others, care for others, counsel others, as well as learn some more business/managerial skills. It’s incredible. But over the past few months, I forgot about the lessons I have learned about self-care. I allowed myself to get wrapped up in my work and stretch myself beyond my limits for the sake of helping others.

Thankfully, I am better at recognizing when I’m doing this these days and while it’s still not easy, I have the skills and support to pull myself out of that space. So the past few weeks, I have committed myself to re-engaging with self-care in meaningful ways. I want to do this work for a long time and the only way I can do that is to take care of myself and set healthy boundaries.

I am so glad that as I have grown, I’ve learned to recognize the value in my passion for generating connection and skill for caring for others. My ability to delve into someone else’s feelings, see things from their perspective, and provide the support they need to navigate the challenges in their life is probably my favorite quality about myself. I have been so fortunate and feel so grateful that my life trajectory has shown me the many ways that I can utilize these skills and make a living doing so, it really doesn’t get much better than that. It has also been one of the greatest joys of my adult life to watch my friends as they discover their passions and as they blaze trails in their individual fields of work. Watching the people I know and love connect with work that makes them come alive makes me feel hopeful and gives me such a sense of joy. We should all be so lucky as to find and cling to the things we are most passionate about in life.

Until next time.

Peace and love,

Adam