Work is work and personal is personal

For some people this concept is easy. For others not so much.

I fell into the latter.

One day I woke up and realized that I needed to separate my career from my life. I was astounded to find I didn't actually have a life.

You know the expression - get a life? Well I did.

I work in a high pressured environment. It is a job that can easily become 24x7x365 without a blink of an eye. The trick is balance - what can wait till tomorrow? What needs to be done now? What is the customer's true priority?

I have become adept at answering all of these things - but my 20's are gone and I can't get that time back. So I am making the most of the time I have now.

I taught a student last night who, by rights, could be me at that age. Right down to her birthday being the day before mine. She's in her teens however. And she has no real life. She is all about school work and sleep. She is having some difficulties with time management. I have been trying to teach her about time management and not making the same mistakes that I did. Of course, as always there are differences. I occasionally sacrificed grades for friends and for music as it was my intended career choice at that time. I was a procrastinator as she is and a detail freak ( and I still am). She has the same issues with self control that I had at that age too.

I was giving her her lesson when my cell phone rang. It was my boss. I looked at the phone because though I have personalized ringtones for each person in my phone book and a generic one for numbers I don't know, I absolutely couldn't believe that my boss was calling on the Friday night of a holiday weekend. The 20 year old me, would have excused myself, returned the call and left early to work on whatever the call was for. I listened patiently to the voice mail and made the decision that this can wait until Monday. Then I turned my attentions back to my student and discussion why she had not time for practice again.

What I noticed with her is that she has developed a pattern over the years. She works from January to June like a pro. From June through December it's me getting angry for not practicing, me lecturing, her being disappointed in herself, her crying, us working out time lines and different practice techniques to get the most bang for you buck and most definitely NOT in that order. Then January comes and I don't have to tell her anything. She just does it. And well. She 's truly gifted on the piano. She loves it too which is more important.

This week her report card came home while I was there as well. So we had to add that to the mix. This is a true straight A student. And yet the comments bother her. She doesn't like them. I found them funny. I mean, A+ in a class and the comment is Works Satisfactorily? That's code for something I won't print here! My other favorite was A+ in a class and the comment is excessive lateness. So that caused an emotional outburst. I personally would have taken the straight A's an partied like a lunatic. But that's me now, that wouldn't have been me at the same age. I explained that those two qualify in the "stupid" category. Logically if the lateness was adversely affecting her grade - she wouldn't have an A+. And this is an easy one to fix. Get up on time.

So we had the discussion about time mgmt. I told her she was on strike 1 of three strikes and you're out. I talked her through some time mgmt techniques and she's going to give them from now until January to try them out and make sure that they are doable.

The moral of the story here, Adults are not the only ones who can't separate the two. Kids suffer more now than we did at that age. Partly because the school work is rather intense in the honors classes as far as time goes not necessarily difficulty. Kids are also spread too thin in general. Kids should have 2 or 3 activities and that's it. I had a ton at that age and all through High school and I suffered the stress that goes with that and I have to tell you that it wasn't until I was a senior in HS that I got it under control. I did it by scheduling my AP classes in the Morning taking 2 study halls and a lunch back to back and going home to sleep during the day. I came back in time for Band/orchestra. I was a work-a-holic even as a student.

I'm not anymore. I sleep at night - very well thank you. I do not have medical scares because of unusually high stress levels. And most of all at night when I stop working - I'm truly done unless it is my week to be on call or I have PLANNED after hours activities.

I teach music lessons but it seems that I wear more hats than just that. I am teacher, parent, counselor, friend, minister, doctor, you name it. Last night, I was life lessons coach.

I hope she learns it now. My boss is heading for a heart attack that we cannot prevent. I don't want that to be this child's future.