Showing Up Is What Matters
Dear Parents,
Last Teacher’s Day, I had a teacher come to me and confess that she felt she had not been the best teacher so far.
She looked at the popular teachers around her and felt inadequate. She felt she was never enough.
Not because she didn’t know how to teach, but because she sometimes felt invisible on the team. She felt nobody saw her the way other students and parents saw their other favourites.
Such a deep reflection to carry into what we call a day as important as Teacher’s Day.
And I realise, irrespective of the profession or role we are in, feeling inadequate is something we all experience.
As a teacher. As a parent. As a housewife. As a retired grandparent. As the person in charge of something, or simply the person trying to hold things together.
We look around. We see someone doing it better. Someone more loved. Someone more appreciated. Someone whose efforts seem to be seen so easily.
But perhaps what matters is not how likeable we are, or how often we are noticed or appreciated.
What matters is how we choose to show up.
There will be days you are questioned, doubted, disliked and misunderstood.
There will be days when your efforts go unnoticed and you wonder if any of it matters.
And yet, you show up.
You keep doing the work. You keep caring. You keep trying to get it.
