love them anyway.

11 weeks down. 93 to go.

I'm about to hit my three month mark, and I'm told that there's a wall that comes along with that milestone. I feel the wall coming and hope to jump over it effortlessly instead of crashing into it headfirst and falling on my rear end.

About a year ago, I made a list of things about me, so that I could be more "self-aware." One of the things on the list was that I hate change, but love starting over. I have loved the last 11 weeks because everyday is a new day, every weekend off has been a new adventure, and I continue to learn more about my job and my kids all the time. Alas, there is change in the air, and I am suffocating in a world of dislike. Change sucks. I am transitioning prematurely into the chief-in-charge of my group, more new kids are joining the group, more kids are graduating, and I am standing in the middle of it all as the winds whip around me, shifting my world around, challenging me to comply with the change.

Change is pressure for me. Change is uncomfortable for me. Change is not my friend. I feel as if I've been so distracted by the changes, that I haven't embraced the freshness of it all. I have a group of campers that need me to know who they are, and each time a new camper comes into my group, I have a chance to start over. I missed that chance with a few of them, but hopefully there's time to recover and begin to build a relationship where they can trust and respect me as their authority, but an authority who cares.

Matthew Fox comments on Pierre Boulez's definition of what life is about: "The goal of life is not happiness; it is living." And living implies suffering. In fact, the creative person--and that hopefully is all of us--takes on additional burdens of suffering by entering fully into living.
-A Spirituality Named Compassion

It's a tough thing each week to commit to living fully for these kids and for myself, to put their needs ahead of my own, but to satisfy my needs enough to be healthy and capable of loving them and taking care of them. It's a delicate balance that I haven't mastered, and may never master, but somehow each morning, I need to remember that it's important.

It's important even when they cuss me out all day everyday when I hold them accountable for their negative behaviors.
It's important even when they run out of bounds for three hours, forcing you to re-focus your entire day towards getting them back in group.
It's important even when they say they hate me and sit in problems for an entire week.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help, but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
-Mother Theresa