The Perfect Day

One thing I love about being a teacher is that I am constantly learning right along with my students...

This summer, about 25 students in our department are participating in an internship for college credit.  In order to receive credit, they are required to complete a variety of tasks, one of which is engaging in an online discussion forum.  Through this forum we not only discuss a variety of learning and working strategies, but also “fun” topics to get to know each other better.

The “fun” topic I initiated this past week was inspired by my favorite book, Tuesday’s with Morrie.  I asked the students to describe, in detail, their perfect day.  Most students described a day of eating their favorite foods and participating in outdoor sporting and recreational activities with their friends.  Similarly, my own reply centered around spending the day with family and friends on the beaches of Mexico. 

Just when I thought the discussion had wrapped-up, a final student piped in, “My perfect day would be with me waking up and going to work with a smile because I love my job. I would be living in a nice, warm city with my family around me and I would come home to my kids and husband who are all really happy to have me home.”

At first I read this student’s reply and thought to myself, “Wow. That is a really lame perfect day. Working? Give me a break!”

But for the rest of the day, I kept reflecting back on this student’s comments.  Eventually, I realized that she was onto something.  If we need to transplant ourselves into an unsustainable situation in order to experience our perfect day, that day really may not be perfect at all - as we may be dreading our eventual return to reality.

However, if we truly enjoy our work and relationships, every day can be perfect in its own way, as we know that tomorrow and each day after will bring more of the same. 

So instead of dreaming about escaping to our perfect day, it seems that we should rather work to achieve happiness in our every day lives.  That’s not to say I am going to cancel my next Mexican vacation, but I may look at it a bit differently.

In closing, I shared a draft of this blog entry with my student and she said, “You captured the essence of what I was trying to say better than I could have myself.”  Maybe I did, or maybe I did not, but one thing is for certain... I could not have captured it without you.