What are you working for?

How working towards our dreams transforms suffering

I quit teaching to escape the never-ending workload, low pay, and increasingly exhausting emotional toll, but happily signed up for an almost identical doom cocktail. Turns out what you’re working for makes all the difference. 

In June 2023, I resigned from my high school Spanish teaching job without any clear employment prospects. It wasn’t the first time. 

Just five years into my inaugural teaching position in 2002, before cell phones and laptops completely changed the classroom game, I decided to pursue the passion for songwriting and performing I started to develop in my college years wholeheartedly. My Spanish for Native speakers class had been reading Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist out loud together in the stuffy portable classroom on spring afternoons, pollen from the pink almond blossoms driving us crazy. Like the story’s protagonist, I heard my heart clearly guiding me to the unknown in pursuit of my dream. The students protested asking me, But Señora Brown, why are you leaving? I told them candidly it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy what I was doing, but I wanted to do something else more. 

Fast forward through a divorce and five years of substitute teaching + solo, singer-songwriter gigging that left me in financial dire straits, making minimal, but regular paychecks from a teaching position deeply appealing. I told myself that I wasn’t giving up on my dream, I could do both. A picture of Santiago from The Alchemist story flashed in my mind. 

The young shepherd in the story decides to embark on a journey in search of his dream only to become derailed on the first leg of his adventure getting robbed of his small inheritance of gold coins while distracted by a jewel encrusted sword at a market. He valiantly earns back his money and more after a year of hard work and must decide again whether to continue with his quest or return home. 

It wasn’t a sword that distracted me from my dream, but the siren call of security. My friends were pleasantly occupied with their homes and growing families. I was past the acceptable age of career exploration, and was desperate to buy myself some stability and a sense of belonging. So like Santiago, I started from the bottom again. 

In 2009, the teaching job market was competitive. I took an adult ESL(English as a Second Language) job that had me driving an hour out into the rice fields between Chico and Sacramento in the afternoons and evenings. The beauty of those lonely backroads with the sweeping choreography of circling birds in the open sky became my quiet companion. The joy of providing a needed service to kind, grateful, and incredibly brave and resilient people inspired me. We worked hard, laughed at impossible English pronunciation and grammar rules, and celebrated with pozole potlucks. 

The job rebuilt my resume enough to land a full time high school Spanish job in Sonoma County where my new husband was hoping we could move. A second chance at marriage, health benefits, and a salaried income glinted like the blade that derailed Santiago in the market. 

How glorious to watch the red numbers turn to black all while doing something creative with fun young people. How exhausted I felt at the end of the day. Too tired to write and practice like I wanted. But I could still do both. Right?

My husband kindly arranged a monthly Friday night gig for us to perform as a duo in a local restaurant. He went early to set up the gear so I could rush home, change, and arrive just in time to tune up for the three hour set. For those precious hours, I woke up to what slept inside me during the school day. I heard my voice strong, beautiful, and confident on the mic floating over the clinking glasses and silverware. Who was this person warmly receiving compliments and tips, enjoying heartfelt connections with enamored listeners?

After a decade performing that balancing act, I discovered that I could live in two worlds, but at great cost. 

The perky, idealistic beginning teacher I had been at one point dissolved into a quivering mass of bitter goo as the ratio of creativity and schoolwork sharply decreased and the inevitable reality of smartphones-plus-teenagers took alarming shape. In came California wildfires and a worldwide pandemic to hasten the decline. Students needed more than ever, and the balancing act crashed to the ground. 

Like Santiago, it was time for me to take stock of the wealth of experience and actual savings I accumulated to make a decision. Would I continue my quest or remain in the increasingly painful, but secure life I spent a decade building?

A former band-mate and I had started meeting together on a weekly basis trying to recapture our love of songwriting and singing during what became my last year of teaching. We dreamed of a plan to bring our creative work to the forefront in a way that respected our whole self– financial, spiritual, family, and community. 

One lingering warm fall afternoon, we took a walk in an old, semi-rural cemetery shaded by oaks on the edge of town. As we walked among the stories hinted at on each gravestone, the possibility of actually quitting again became real. You’ve already tried taking the edge off by dropping one class, my friend reminded me. Are you really going to be satisfied if you stay?

In June, I sat at the kitchen counter with my school-issued laptop looking out at the serenely swaying bamboo leaves lining the deck. I knew that my dream would not leave me alone. It was as easy as pressing the send button to release the email with my resignation off through the ether. 

One year later, I’m still facing a never-ending workload of piecing together multiple jobs while I write a memoir about quitting teaching and record a podcast to compliment the songwriting support business and community my friend and I dreamed up. The pay is still low and I am tired, but it feels completely different. Like never before, I’m inside my own skin, undivided in who I am, what I do, and how I present myself to the world. It’s exhausting, exhilarating, and absolutely worth it.