Are you looking forward to the holidays? How about spring break or the summer or simply Fridays? Or how about just coffee? What about retirement? Do you know teachers that have their retirement date worked out to the year, month, week, day and depending on how things are going in a particular movement, they may even have the minutes and seconds figured out? Better yet, do you know someone who doesn’t?

One of my biggest teaching mentors, Deborah VH Cook always said, “I love my job and I love my time off.” As educators we have so much to look forward to and so much time off. I couldn’t think of a better way to raise my kids than by being a teacher and being off when they are. 

I have come across the term destination disease quite a bit lately. Destination disease refers to focusing on the destination and not the journey. I don’t believe that destination disease is a clinical diagnosis. It refers to the idea of “I will be happy when_________ and you can fill in any word in the blank that you want. I will be happy when Friday is here, when we get to Spring Break, when it is summer time. Will you? Are you sure about that?

Would you be looking forward to summer as much as you are if you knew it would be your last one because it could be, it could be mine too. How many times do we have to be reminded of those people who had it all in front of them until the moment when suddenly, they didn’t?

So what about today? What about choosing happiness today? What about choosing to find the joy in what it is we get to do for a living? How about choosing to be grateful and mindful of the fact that we have chosen the most important profession in the world? Even in those times when we feel like we are spitting in the wind and or running around spinning tops, my hope is that we can take solace in the fact that at least we have given this day our best shot and if we are fortunate enough we can attempt to make tomorrow even better.    

This microblog post was a featured post in #slowchathealth’s #microblogmonth event. You can search for all of the featured posts here. Please do follow each of the outstanding contributors on social media (including Mark Housel, the author of this post) and consider writing a microblog post of your own to be shared with the global audience of slowchathealth.com. Mark is a three-time author. CLICK HERE to check out all of his books.

Pair this post with the following:

One Day Your Health Is All You Will Think About by Dr. Kim Morton

Don’t Let Other People Ruin Your Fun by Mark Housel

What Is The Most Fun Thing You’ve Ever Done? by Mark Housel

Making Time for Engagement and Joy by Kurt Weiler