Who's Your Boss?

Find out who's really running the show

All the years I taught high school Spanish, I never thought of the district or the principal as my boss.

It was something bigger— all-pervasive, overarching EDUCATION. The belief that there’s a right way and a wrong way, and it was my job as a teacher to show students how to stay in the correct lane. It even trickled down into the way I prepared my lessons. I felt I might be doing something wrong if I wasn’t using the latest learning strategy, or the most current literature examples. That kind of a boss doesn’t clock out at 5pm. You can wake up in the middle of the night with a start while that overseer breathes down your neck and reminds you of the stack of essays you said you’d grade and have ready to return tomorrow.

When I quit two years ago, I thought I left that invisible bully behind.

After all, I was no longer tied to the school system calendar and there were no more dreaded teacher evaluations. But when I saw the colorful, crafty little card pictured above in the gift shop I’d started working at during my first no-school fall, it sent a zing throughout my whole body.

YOU ARE THE BOSS OF YOUR LIFE.

Such a simple declaration felt like a revelation. It took everything I had to wrench the controls out of the education system’s claws, so it floored me to consider the fact that there was more digging to do. If I still didn’t feel like the boss of my life, who was?

When I quickly sketched out the lines of that brief poem, the real psychological foreman revealed itself— approval. As a child, I sought it from my parents, as a churchgoer, from the pastors and leaders. Even as a new songwriter in my 30’s, I wanted everyone to like my music and couldn’t find the bottom line of my own opinion to base my success on.

The deeper I dug, the bigger the hole. Who, if anyone, had ever offered me validation that truly set my soul at ease? I’d given so much time, so many tears, and so much energy just to get a weak nod from the people whose title I thought qualified them to guide my life— pastor, husband, father, department chair, friend.

When I pictured a captain’s chair, like perhaps the vinyl, padded Star Trek one where Picard used to point and drop his famous, “Engage!” line, it was empty. I played with the different figures I had given the reigns of my life to, allowing them to sit for a moment in my imagination.

It felt wrong.

For the first time, I imagined myself walking towards that command center, signaling whoever was seated to vacate. Then I turned and slowly sat, running my hands along the faux-leather (It’s Star Trek, and they don’t use animals’ hides anymore in the future, people!) of the armrests and settled in.

It felt right.

For better or worse, I should be the one making the decisions and taking responsibility for the results.

The farther I get from the day I left teaching, the more I see how easy it is to let someone or something else fill that chair. Money, achieving a goal, a relational outcome I have no control over quickly edge their way in and block my higher self out.

It’s thrilling and disturbing to claim the power we actually have, and the stakes are high. But the rewards from planting ourselves firmly in that captain’s chair in all aspects of our lives are worth it. Say it with me, people….

YOU ARE THE BOSS OF YOUR LIFE

Enjoy 16 pocket-sized poems bringing small but certain happiness based on merchandise from a middle-aged shopgirl’s year working at the Luminarium gift shop . “A Luminous Year,” by Karen Joy Brown.