Your Spring

I have always found flowers fascinating. Saplings spring from the earth with much vigor, harbor buds, and bloom on maturing. Their short-lived beauty is an apt metaphor for life, and reflects how the littlest things can bring us joy. My experience as a kindergarten teacher greatly influenced this belief, and made me look at things differently.

It was the summer after college ended, and I had successfully not placed in a single company. The strange thing was, I always made it to the last round of interviews, but somehow never actually got the job. Market recession had everyone scrambling for any job possible and I applied to a nearby kindergarten as a teacher. The principal said I was overqualified, but I happily accepted the position.

My first day was nerve-wracking. The children were unruly, and sensing my unassertiveness, acted out even more. I asked some of the senior teachers for help, but they laughed off my complaints. I felt genuinely lost, I had studied with great passion all my college years and dreamt of the perfect corporate job, but my current position discredited my previous hard work. I was struggling at something meant to be easy and it was humiliating me. So, I screamed. “SILENCE!” echoed through the room and brought the children to a standstill.

The children quietly returned to their places and closed their books. I told them to put their heads down as my heart beat against my ribcage. I was immediately called by a staff member to the principal’s office. I made my way across the hall with trembling hands and uneven breath, greeting the principal with a shaky “Good Afternoon”. I was about to lose a job I didn’t even start. However, the principal seemed unfazed. She gently requested me to sit and offered me water. I started explaining myself and apologized fervently, but she ignored it.

“Why are you working here?”, she asked me.

“I am currently in between jobs, there’s a market recession…”

“Then quit. Wait until you get a job you want.”

“No, I’ll work until then, this is a minor setback. I assure you I am not usually like this.”

She said that was not the point. I was only working this job to deal with the guilt of not achieving my dream job. This act of “settling” for a minimum wage job was a way of punishing myself for not being worthy enough of a fancy corporate one. I was being my own enemy and blaming my life instead. She said I could continue if I genuinely wanted, or quit with no repercussions.

I continued. But this time not simply to make a living, but to learn from life and not a textbook. I accepted that it would take me a while to get to my dream job, and that it was okay. It wasn’t a failure but just a setback. Media keeps shoving teen millionaires and CEOs into our faces but the reality is that life takes time. Success comes to each of us in different ways on our own timelines. I approached my job with an optimistic outlook, eager to teach the kids. I gradually connected with the kids and began to enjoy my days at school.

I quit three months later after landing my dream tech job. But I still look back fondly on my days at the kindergarten. Sometimes, our failures teach us more than success ever will. Things don’t always go our way to ensure we learn the lessons we’re meant to. Learning to accept rejections has now become my greatest superpower. You must mature before you can bloom, for your spring will surely come.