Work getting too stressful? Just have a laugh

At times we tend to overlook the little things in life that give us pleasure because we’re too occupied by the thoughts of the negatives. This is why in my opinion people suffer from stress and depression. Simply choosing to feel differently over a current state of negative emotions can make a huge difference in anyone’s life.

I use to hate staff meetings, to an extent I still do but as of late I’ve been reflecting on why that is. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t sit still listening to people talk for too long. I get bored too quickly listening to repetitions. My mind needs to be stimulated and lengthy discussions do the opposite of that. This made me think of my students. They tend to get restless, especially after lunch and I know that tiredness has a grip on them on that time. Yet they are still made to sit through a few more hours of tuition even though they aren’t paying attention anymore. But this is another topic for a different day. Back to the main point of this post.
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These two days were particularly lengthy for me at work and it’s mainly because of meetings. Yesterday meeting was about feedback for our recent school review visit by the department of education. Other items on the agenda were the finance report, repairs that need to be made at the school, finalising assessments for the timeous issuing out of reports and so on. As you can imagine It was quite a long meeting. I soldiered through it though consistently reminding myself that this is information that I need to hear. The meeting did however end with a bang! One of my colleague was asked to close the meeting with a short prayer. Before then one of my older colleagues cracked a few jokes that had us all in stitches so the one that was asked to close the meeting couldn’t stop laughing. The room went absolutely quiet waiting for her to close but all we could here were silent laughter and everyone started laughing again. It took a while for the meeting to officially close but it was fun. I had a short section to present on in the meeting and I couldn’t help but to add a little joke of my own. source

In today’s, meeting I decided not be a spectator but an active participant. This was actually an experiment on my side just to see how I would feel if I contributed to the majority of suggestions and resolutions. I must admit that it was quite fun. I engaged and felt good. I was given plenty of opportunities to my input which is something that I usually don’t do. I’ve made a decision to be more outspoken in meetings to make them meet my needs as a young teacher.
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Today’s meeting ended on a funny note as well. “Mrs Nku” made us roll on the ground in laughter. She requested that I assist them in her section as I am a little more experienced in this committee in comparison to her and “Mr Shaka”. The reason why we were laughing is because Mr Shaka is in his fifties and has been in this committee multiple times. Saying he was new and inexperienced was quite funny. The reactions were priceless.

The whole point to this is that we as teachers should have as much fun as possible at any time. Our profession is stressful enough as it is. Whenever the opportunity presents itself to let lose and laugh until it hurts we should take advantage of such situations. We are only human and there’s only so much we can take. Let us balance that out with a bit of humour. SO JUST SMILE! source