I remember studying biblical Green when I was 13 or 14 years old, and getting so frustrated that I cried.
“I’m not getting anywhere with this,” I sobbed to Momma.
I was too old to cry like that. I felt like I’d shrunk back to when I was a little kid and had to stay at the dinner table until I finished the canned asparagus or something.
It was dramatic, but it came from this place of not feeling like I was making any progress.
And it wasn’t just about Greek. It was the pile of school work in general. It felt repetitive to me. It didn’t feel like I was compounding what I was learning to get somewhere. It felt stagnant.
I’ve noticed this trend throughout my life.
The feeling of making progress is critical to my feeling of wellbeing.
When I don’t feel like I’m making progress, I feel bad.
When I do feel like I’m making progress, I usually feel good, even if other things in my life don’t seem as great.
Toward the end of my English teaching days, I didn’t feel progress. It felt repetitive. I liked being able to travel when I was off work, but the classes and days in class ran together. Students didn’t feel like they were always progressing, and I certainly didn’t as a person.
I wanted to be done with that.
But objectively, I was working 5 hours a day, traveling for weeks at a time internationally multiple times per year, making more money than I’d ever made before. You could argue that it was a social thing, that I wanted to come back to the United States and make deeper friendships. That was part of it. But I enjoyed the friendships I made over there too.
I liked what I was doing overall, but I didn’t feel like I was making progress.
Same as Greek.
Same as now.
That’s why yesterday I wrote about some actions that’ve helped me spark the feeling of progress recently.
Supposedly, the feeling of progress is one of the strongest indicators of workplace satisfaction.
It certainly feels like it for me.
What’s weird is, starting the New Year, I actually do feel like I’m making progress, even if objectively I’m also delivering pizzas. Again.
