Struggle

Is it weird to struggle with not struggling?  It sounds weird, for sure.  I just have this feeling like everybody around me is working so hard, and I'm not.  It's like they're all running into the wind, trying to get to someplace in particular, and I'm running with the wind at my back, but nowhere to go.  Or something like that.  People all have these goals that they work toward, and they work so hard, and they seem fulfilled by the working, and I think that's great.  But I don't feel like I have goals, and I don't feel like I work that hard, and I'm not sure if I feel fulfilled very often, or ever at all.

For example, I am currently a Lasallian Volunteer.  It's this awesome volunteer program associated with the De La Salle Christian Brothers that places recent college graduates in ministries around the country for 1, 2, or sometimes 3 years.  The volunteers are mostly teachers, teacher's aids, tutors, or something like that, though my job is a little different.  I'm a recreation coordinator for court-adjudicated boys in a residential placement facility (less politically correct, you could read that as delinquent teenagers in a no-bars form of juvenile detention).  My job is great.  I'm responsible for organizing after school and weekend activities for the 70-80 boys living on campus. These activities range from football, softball, and basketball, to rock climbing, caving, and camping; plus whatever else I can think of and convince kids to try.  The job is perfect for me in a lot of ways.  I love to play these games, I like kids (I think), I got to move to someplace I had never been, and the financial end does not place me in quite such dire straits as the word "volunteer" often makes people suspect. 

So what's wrong?  Nothing.  Nothing, that is, until I start to look at the experiences many of my fellow volunteers are having / have had.  The pain of leaving home, of moving into community life, of teaching, of trying to build relationships with coworkers and students, of trying to meet almost impossible expectations, of despairing at the truly dismal prospects for some of these kids.  I don't seem to have those pains, and I kind of have to wonder what that means.  I wish it meant I'm just well-adjusted and a good fit for the job, but that seems pretty unlikely.  Good though I may be at carrying out the technical end of the work, my relationship building skills leave a lot to be desired, and that's the heart of what we do.  I think my mile-wide independent streak might have a little to do with it, but I'm pretty sure it's not the whole answer.  I think the truth might be that I have somehow settled into a sort of complacency (also called comfort), and that this is turning into a form of indifference.  It isn't that I don't care about whether or not these kids lives are changed for the better, it's just that I'm no longer sure this place has the tools to be the catalyst for that change.  As a result, I think I'm gradually seeing myself less as an agent of change, and more as a member of the status quo.  Recidivism rates for youth in residential placements average 70%.  That's HUGE!  That means 7 OUT OF 10 of the boys I work with will end up back in the justice system, probably incarcerated as adults at some point.  My school keeps being recognized by the State of New York as one of the best at this work, and yet I look at the numbers and can't help but feel like we are just another oppressor, restarting the cycle over and over again. The tragic truth is that the wind is coming out of my sails and I'm not sure it's coming back.  My peers are full of enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm is the source of their pain (after all, the struggle can't hurt you if you don't care about how it ends).  My enthusiasm has so waned that I no longer share their pain, and that realization is the source of my pain right now. 

What's more, this suspicion of indifference I have isn't limited to the Lasallian Volunteers.  I feel a little indifferent about the future of my life, too.  I have a loose plan for where I'm headed in the next couple years, but I don't feel like that plan is in the true form of goals, and I don't feel like I'm working toward it that hard.  I feel like everything is just kind of slipping by me, like I'm failing to notice life as it happens, and I don't think there could be much worse a way to be.  If you aren't noticing life, you aren't living, and if you aren't living, you're dead.  I'm becoming the walking dead, a 21st century zombie. 

So, for all those peers of mine currently struggling through the pains of trying to be good teachers, maybe of failing at that, of being unemployed, of being dissatisfied with their statuses, know that at least that pain is a form of life.  It may not be the best form, but it's better than indifference.  Good luck finding your way to happiness.  Please wish me the same.