The Summer of My Discontent

“Intention, good or bad, is not enough.”

~John Steinbeck, from The Winter of Our Discontent

For many years I was taught that being discontented is a bad thing.  As Christians, I was told, we should always be filled with joy and that discontent is a sign of weakness. I was told we should never be unhappy with our life because we have so much to be thankful for, especially in America.  Maybe it is a defect in my personality, but I have always disagreed slightly with that philosophy.

For years, I was continually fighting my weight.  I was in a constant struggle with food that I always lost.  At some point, I resigned to the fact that I had no control over food, that I could not exercise regularly because of a plethora of reasons, and that I just needed to accept my life in its current state.  It was the same with my job.  I had dreamed of getting my doctorate and teaching at the college level, but more than once I gave up on that dream as well. In a sense, I was content with the person I had become, but hating that person at the same time.  Because that was my present reality, I felt that would be my reality for the rest of my life.

Then the age of 40 reared its ugly head.  Forty is a magical and terrifying age.  It is not the age to look back and have regrets or look forward with dread. I had done many great things: successful teacher, loving father, active in my church and singing regularly, and a seemingly happy husband. But under the surface bubbled an insecure person that was bursting at the seams to get out and do something different.  This was not the person I wanted to be and I felt I had to make a change for the sake of my sanity. 

Now I am happier than I have ever been, and one reason for that transformation is because of my discontent.  I want to be a better professor next year than I was this year.  I want to learn more every day, gain more skills, teach different classes, improve my writing, and open up a part of myself that I never knew existed.  I want to continually improve my fitness level and find new challenges to pursue. I kept most of my weight off in the last five years, ran a whole 5K, and pushed myself in the gym every time I went.  But that is not enough.  I know I can do better, push myself harder, run faster, or make changes that will make me feel better about my body.

I know skeptics will say: “How do you know when you have reached the point where you are happy with yourself?”  If they say that, they have missed the whole point. I never want to be content with where I am. I know someday I will look back and applaud what I have accomplished, but I hope that I will still be pursuing new challenges until the day I die. I want to be like Betty White, still acting in her 90s. I want to be Willie Nelson (minus his obvious bad habit), who got a Black Belt in Karate at 82.  I want to be like Bill Cosby, still active and extremely funny well into his 80s.  I don’t want to worry about death at every corner, but I want to naively pretend I will live forever. 

Yes, I am an idealist, but that is the way I choose to live.  I want to always be looking for the next challenge, reading the next book, or wondering what is around the next corner.  I want to continually be striving to improve myself, as well as taking care of the ones I love, supporting my children as they transform into adults, training my body into submission, becoming a more effective college instructor and mentor, and seizing ways to make a difference in other peoples’ lives every day. 

Will you join me? The only limits you have are the ones you place on yourself.

Let’s get going!  It is a long summer, so we better get started.

For the Love of Nature, Part II

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive.”~Aldo Leopold

Part I of this story began almost 20 years ago.  I was teaching an environmental unit with my middle school science students called “Mission:  New Earth”.  We decorated the room, had guest speakers, worked in teams, and recorded video commercials to promote starting over on a new planet after ours was left desolate and depleted.  It was Project Based Learning before I even knew what I was doing; back then we called it interdisciplinary learning. I truly enjoyed teaching the unit and had it published in Science Scope in 1997. 

After teaching that project for four years, I moved to a different middle school and conducted field trips to a local watershed with my seventh grade science students.  In 1998, Gary Endsley and I started the Environmental Technology Camps with Texas Parks and Wildlife and I became involved with River Basins Institute. We conducted the camps for five years and they were very successful.  During that time, I also taught High School Biology and Environmental Science in Queen City and even started an outdoor learning center.

The summer camps featured field trips and science activities in the morning and technology applications in the afternoon.  We offered day camps for middle school and elementary students, including Creepy Crawley Critters, Archaeology Academy, and Junior Master Gardener.  We learned about forestry and tested water and took field trips to local water treatment plants and the Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.  The highlight of the summer was a three-day trip to Caddo Lake, where we met with Wildlife Biologists, took boat rides, tested water, and stayed in cabins. 

The camps eventually lost their funding and my time at River Basins Institute ended, but my love for nature never did. Gary and I got busy with other interests and I began working on a lifelong dream of getting my doctorate and teaching at the college level. Now that I am settled into a job preparing science and math teachers, my love for nature and environmental science has been rekindled. I am currently working on strengthening a partnership between UTeach and River Legacy Living Science Center in Arlington. I will also attend an environmental camp this summer sponsored by Luminant Energy.

As I walked today on a local nature trail in DFW, I was struck with the connections between man and his local environment.  On my left side was the Trinity River, wetlands, and fields of wildflowers.  I could hear the chirping of birds, saw a turtle getting warm on a log, watched a majestic Great Blue Heron take wing, and saw a long garter snake race across the sidewalk.  On my right, I could hear the roar of cars and diesels moving across George Bush Tollway (Hwy 161).  It seemed like such a contrast. Some would think it is sad that man has encroached on nature and taken away the luster of the natural world. But I see it differently. I am blessed that I can experience a place where people recognize the eternal interplay between man and nature.  It is not an either/or scenario.  It will always be a balance between the needs of mankind (transportation, housing, etc.) and the magnificence of nature. I want to teach students that we must create harmony between the two.  But we must also teach our children the importance of nature and let them see its value, beauty, and necessity.

I hope I can instill a wonder for nature and a love for the environment in my future teachers.  It is not a distraction, but a necessity if we hope to protect this wondrous world that we have been given, as we gently pass it to the next generation.