coping

I've been thinking a lot recently about a conversation I had with my department chair several weeks ago. It seemed fairly unremarkable at the time, but my chair started our discussion by saying, "I was thinking about all the issues facing us right now, and I started to feel overwhelmed, so I sat down and made a list of things that we do actually have control over, and I wanted to share them with you." Now I realize that he was teaching me about how to survive in this job: focus on what you can actually control.

Part of the issue with adjusting to my job is that the boundaries between what I can or can't control are not yet obvious to me. This is probably due to my inexperience. A crisis will arise, and I will respond as if there's something I can do about it; it won't become clear until later that the issue was out of my hands the entire time. This is frustrating, but educational, and I'll learn.

At the moment, there are some things I know I can control. I want to focus on them over the next several weeks:

• Research: this is my time to bang out some articles. Although my job still makes demands on my time, I do have the time and space to focus on my work. I need to make the most of it, because when this time is over, it won't be nearly as easy to spend an afternoon reading and writing. When I was sick of finishing my dissertation, I never imagined how precious I would consider my research time!
• Well-being: the main assaults on my mental health are job-related stress and anxiety about getting Dave and myself to the same geographic location on a permanent basis; these are both long-term issues that will take some time to address. But what I can do now is make the effort to cook and eat healthfully, be disciplined about getting enough rest, and exercise (e.g., running twice a week and meditation of some form). These don't directly address the stressors, but I hope they'll make me stronger and more flexible (mentally and physically) when I have to deal with them.
• Kindness: yeah, I'm pretty stressed out. But I have so much to be thankful for, and I can practice my thankfulness by being kind to others. I remember this little tiff I had with a woman in my choir back in 2005, when I was stressed out about applying for graduate schools. I was so sleepy during rehearsal, that I was reading a magazine when the sopranos were not actively rehearsing to stay awake. The woman behind me scolded me, which made me indignant. She emailed me later that night to apologize, saying that she had been out of line. I responded by explaining that I was sleep-deprived because I was going through a lot of stress, and she replied to say that she totally understood – her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's the previous year, and she had had to put her in a nursing home, and bring her father home to live with her – and that I could call her anytime I needed someone to talk to. Umm, yeah you win, lady! I should have been more gracious towards her in her outburst. I've been trying to remember that lesson ever since: you never know what's going on in the lives of people around you, and a small gesture of kindness may go a long way in someone else's life.

Just typing out these plans have made me feel a little better. My hope is that at the end of the next few months, though I'm unsure about where things will stand on various issues with my program, I'll be able to say that I was disciplined about my research goals, worked to stay sound in mind and body, and was kind to others (esp. Dave!).