Make Room

It is a nearly unavoidable fact that your life’s routine will get in the way of your dreams and goals, especially when they are already verging on what some people might consider weird or unrealistic.

After being back to work only one week, I quickly realized this to be true.  I have lofty plans and goals, and what I think is a “calling” that just seems so far away right now that my daily routine of being a teacher is threatening to bury that under a pile of lesson plans to create, student work to grade, and materials to read.  These are pending, and my duty as an educator, so how can I put them aside in order to work towards something that still seems a bit crazy in my own mind?

I cannot answer that question.  Sometimes we just have to make room in our lives for the unusual tasks in order to fulfill something extraordinary… and extraordinary rarely happens instantaneously, nor is it easy.

I just finished an inspiring book called Three Cups of Tea, which retells the true story of Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber who just happened to be inspired to build a school in a remote village of Pakistan.  He had no means to do this and no connections.  In fact, he lived in his car in San Francisco.  Yet this man has now successfully built several schools in remote villages of Pakistan (schools really concentrating on educating girls and hoping to educate to bring peace), and now in Afghanistan.

It just takes someone crazy or determined enough to make room to pursue a passion.