Time, and why Eternal Life wouldn’t work for me.

As a teacher, I have a weird life—no nine-to-five job for me. I work all day, I work evenings, I work weekends, then suddenly, for two glorious months in the summer, I have no work. During the school year, I look forward to summer as the time when I can do everything I want to do but have no time for during the school year: clean out and organize my files, read copious amounts of books, explore new recipes to cook, purge my iTunes of songs I hate, research my retirement plan and develop a better investment strategy, exercise daily, complete projects around the house, clean the bathtub regularly, go to community events, read the entire newspaper, write…

Now that it is actually summer and I’ve been free for a month, here is what I have done: read one book (Ethan Frome, which is very short), caught up on the last 5 months of The Atlantic, exercised haphazardly, vacuumed out the car, read slightly more of the newspaper, played soduku when it was easy or medium, spent copious amounts of time petting the cats while listening to NPR, written some—but not as much or as profoundly as I had hoped, packed and unpacked for weekend trips, spent way too much time mindlessly surfing the internet, taken many naps, stared out the window, wondered why I have so many pens but can never find the right pen, etc… Not exactly the most productive use of time. I think I save up my laziness all year and then spend it during these two summer months.

So eternal life would be bad for me. I need stress and deadlines in order to get anything done. It’s like this: When I was a kid, I could spend a lot of time playing in the pool or the lake. Then one day, I joined swim team and it consumed my life for the next 6 years. While swimming endless laps, I always thought about how fun it would be to just play around in the water without having to work on endurance, speed, or technique. Yet when I was faced with a pool or lake without lane ropes and denuded of my cap and goggles, I was at a loss for what to do. I was bored. I needed a structured workout. Alas--I have spent so much of my life in school and doing homework, as a student then as a teacher, that when I am faced with vast amounts of free time, I inevitably squander it. It is a curse. I know once I’m back in school, like once I was back in the lanes, I’ll wish I’d made better use of this freedom.