Free your mind
The ‘What If’ Philosophy is Killing Us
What if we did things otherwise?
Right now, besides keeping house and raising growing kids, I’m trying to finish a TESOL course.
I’m a graduate of Sofia University, the only Bulgarian university with a good philological school, and I have about seven years of intensive teaching experience. Believe me, I’ve had enough of it.
I don’t want to teach again.
It’s enough that I do this blasted activity with my kids every single day.
Fight as I did, now I realize I was somehow relieved to quit my well-paid teaching job in Sofia when my husband proposed back in 2010. At the time, I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but now I see it as clearly as I see every new wrinkle on my face. (I believe there’s no keener eye than that of one who examines a forty-year-old face in the mirror.)
At the beginning of my life in Thessaloniki, before the kids came, I wanted to take a stab at babysitting, eldercare, hotel industry. Anything but teaching. While my kids were small and I was looking for something part-time, I got a freelance job as a translator and had a few books translated from Bulgarian to English. It was much more difficult, and much less paid than teaching. Yet I liked it better.
You’ll ask me now, ‘Why are doing a TESOL course, then?’
Good question.
When the war in Ukraine broke out last year, it affected all countries in the region. The financial stability of my family is now hanging by a thread. I began to believe that returning to teaching would be my only option if I had to start making real money once more. Thirteen years have passed since I last practiced teaching outside my home, and I realized I’ll need a certificate that confirms I’m still able to stand in front of a stranger and make them believe the words leaving my mouth are something close to sacred.
So, we paid for this expensive course, and I started it.
Meanwhile, I found Medium, and it turned out to be so enjoyable that I’ve been dragging out the course for months without being able to finish it.
The guilt I feel every day when I prefer to write instead of doing TESOL is extreme.
Why?
It’s not because of the money we paid for the course.
It’s because it’s a thing I should do.
There are things we should do in life, you know.
Like studying a lot of math in school despite hating the subject’s guts, because if in the future we change our mind and decide to have a lucrative profession, we’ll need math.
Like learning how to swim despite our immense fear of water because if in the future we fall into the deep angry sea, we have to be able to get out.
Like keeping all those friendships that exhaust us because if at one point we need to go out with someone, there has to be someone to call.
Like marrying the man or the woman we don’t particularly like because if we don’t find the proper partner in time, we might end up walking down the thorny path of life alone.
Like having kids despite our physical and mental incapability to do so because one day we’ll grow old and then if we feel lonely, there must be someone to disperse our loneliness.
Like stuffing ourselves with the food we don’t like because it’s good for our brain, liver, stomach, heart, blood, and manicured toenails, and who knows, if we eat it regularly, we might prevent a horrible disease in the future.
Like saving most of the money we earn instead of spending it on that nice T-shirt we like, or on going on that dream holiday, because if we lose our job in the future, or need a large sum for an unexpected issue, we must be ready.
Have you ever asked yourselves, dear friends, what big part of our lives passes under the rule of that ominous tyrant, ‘What if?’
This tyrant has enslaved me as well.
Look at me, studying for this stupid TESOL certificate without wanting it, because, if...
Okay.
What if I really had to work again?
What if I had to work and I don’t have the TESOL certificate?
What if I couldn’t get into any school without it?
What then?
Well, you know what? Then, I guess I’ll find a job as a babysitter or a caregiver for elderly people, and I’ll feel much better.
Or I’ll find any other type of job where I use my physical strength more than I use my brain, and I’ll be much happier.
(Not that I don’t like intellectual labor, but I’d rather save my brain for my writing hobby.)
What if your worst fear comes true?
What if it comes and you’re not prepared?
I’ll tell you what.
You’ll figure it out.
And I’m sure that if that time comes, you’ll be much more resourceful and less afraid than you are now, simply thinking about it.
So, discard the horrible ‘what if’ and start doing what you really want to.
For a change.
P.S. If you’re wondering if I’ll finish my TESOL, yes, I’ll do it. Perhaps it’s simply stubbornness, or perhaps throwing away the ‘what if’ philosophy is indeed extremely challenging.
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