Why You Started

Here’s a quote, a resource, a book, and an affirmation to help power you through the rest of the week.

QUOTE

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating, we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel

RESOURCE

Why You Started (Without the Guilt Trip)

Somebody will probably tell you to “remember your why” this month. It could be on a poster in the staff lounge, or in an email from someone who hasn’t been in a classroom since way back when.

This is something different. Not the “remember your why” pep talk. I want you to check whether your why is still true.

Ikigai isn’t the oversimplified Venn diagram you’ve seen on Instagram. It’s about alignment between what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what sustains you. Those four things shift. They’re supposed to shift. The version of “why” that got you into teaching might not be the version that keeps you here.

And that’s not a crisis. That’s just honest.

Midyear is when the original why gets quiet. The testing pressure gets loud. The emails get loud. Patience levels can be at an all-time low. The gap between what you imagined this job would feel like and what it actually feels like — that gets loud too. And the standard advice is to dig deeper into your purpose.

It’s not. Purpose is a compass. And compasses need recalibrating.

So try this instead of remembering your why: ask what still lights you up. Not what should light you up. Not what it used to be. What actually does — this week, in this version of your teaching life.

It might be small. It might not look like what you expected. A kid who waves at you in the hallway. The fifteen minutes after the last bell, when you sit in silence and realize you made it through another day. The fact that you still care enough to read a newsletter about sustainable teaching on a Wednesday afternoon.

Heschel called celebration an active state. Not waiting for something big. Paying attention to what’s still alive in you instead of mourning what’s shifted.

Try it this week:

• Name one thing that still genuinely lights you up about this work. Write it on a sticky note. Put it where you’ll see it Thursday morning.
• Is your “why” a compass or a guilt trip? Compasses point forward. Guilt trips point backward. Worth sitting with that one for a minute.
• Celebrate one small thing today on purpose. Not passively. Actively. Say it out loud to someone.
• If there’s a version of your “why” that no longer fits — you’re allowed to update it. Your purpose in education can be fluid.

Read more: “Celebration is an Active State” — Why Edify

BOOK

Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer — If you read The Courage to Teach (and if you’re here, you probably have), this is the book Palmer wrote when he stopped telling his life what it should be and started listening to what it was actually saying. You can finish it in an afternoon. 👉 Get it on Amazon | Teacher Reset Book Recommendations

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WORTH YOUR TIME

🎙️ “Push Through Is Not a Strategy” — What Epictetus figured out 2,000 years ago about the difference between endurance and strategy. Still the most-shared piece from this stretch.
✍️ “Teaching for the Test Without Selling Out Your Classroom” — Testing season is five weeks away, and the panic emails have started. This is what the research actually says about what works.

AFFIRMATION

I am allowed to let my purpose evolve. What lights me up today is enough.

With Gratitude,

Jeremy

P.S. If you’re in the stretch where your “why” feels more like a whisper than a shout — you’re not broken. You’re midyear. Inside The STRONG Teacher’s Lounge, teachers are sharing what still lights them up — honestly, without the motivational poster energy. Come find yours. Join the STRONG Teacher Core Membership.