...About How Busy I Am?

Because, man, I'm really busy lately. Ironically, I only think of more and more things I can spend time on when I'm constantly in motion, driving from one obligation to the next, or spending precious hours on homework or gym sessions. This series of posts, one a day for the next week, is a direct result of being far too busy to add things to my plate, and hoping into the buffet line anyways.

There are a few central things that are occupying seemingly all of my time lately. Because I'm not used to this level of time commitment, and I'm not particularly enjoying the feeling of constant pressure, I'm hoping that examining the five main things that I spend time on will help me assess the value each of these things brings to my life, and help me when making decisions about my future trajectory. The plan is to write these in order of how long I've been doing each thing, starting with the newest demand on my time.

I. Teen Leaders' Club

I've recently taken a very small secondary position at the YMCA as a club adviser to a leadership club aimed at teens, in addition to working for the before-and-after school program at an elementary school. We have a weekly meeting where we discuss upcoming fundraisers and opportunities to earn volunteer hours, as well as some fitness-related activity. The program culminates with an optional week-long trip to the Blue Ridge Leaders' School in the mountains of North Carolina in June, where the kids will learn various leadership skills, meeting like-minded people, and generally have a good time. I'd compare it to a summer camp, but I've been told it's much closer to a school than that.

So far, my experience has been a bit of a mixed bag. As is the case with most teen programs I've encountered, the kids are great. They're energetic and fun to be around, and I've found it extremely refreshing to see kids that are excited about the program in which they're enrolled. I'm constantly thinking, as they're proposing fundraising ideas or talking excitedly about volunteering, "I never would've done these things. As a teenager, or an adult!" There are lots of similarities with various training seminars to which the Y has subjected me, the key difference being that these kids are excited and enthusiastic about participating. And that has been infectious, to say the least. Also worth noting is that I took over the club from an adviser that had been with them for a year. There was another person that was supposed to help me out, but she took a position with the Girl Scouts shortly thereafter, so I feel obliged not to be yet another person to leave these kids hanging.

But the kids have never been the problem with these kinds of programs, in my experience. Rigid and inflexible structures that don't actually support positive interaction with the programs have left a sour taste in my mouth each time. This program doesn't seem to have those issues; in fact, I'm realizing more and more that I can do almost anything I want! This is the kind of freedom I've wanted to build a teen-related program I've been searching for, but realizing I now have exactly what I've been striving for is somewhat scary. I can't blame any failure on an overbearing and incorrect structure, or subpar leadership, or anything else. It's all on me; my ideas either succeed or fail on their merits and my attitude and effort. It's scary and exciting at the same time, but I'm never sure if I'm more scared or excited.

In terms of a time commitment, this is fairly light. We meet once a week for 90 minutes, the occasional weekend event, some clerical work, and the week-long trip in the summer. As the newest experience covered in this series of posts, I don't have a lot of long-term data on this one, but I'm pretty happy with spending my time in this way for now, and it seems like I enjoy it more and more each week. Which, I think, is a pretty good place to be.

Come back tomorrow for a trip into academia!