#jkltip If you’re having trouble not worrying about the “work” practice mindfulness, read about the power of now, or listen to Eckhart Tolle talk about time
I worked alongside other professionals today on the discussion of anxiety supports for youth with autism and an interesting comment was made related to the idea of how often we put up a fight with kids to do something they don’t want to do. We fight youth who want to draw, or play basketball instead of “work” because of our perceptions of what the goal of school is. For Diagnostic criteria of Autism, there must be a fixation on a pattern of thoughts, or interests, but a lot of educators say they don’t see it.
My concern is that we don’t see it because we ask kids to do what WE want them to do. If we can build structures that allow youth to do more of what they want to do and connect learning goals through reverse engineering we can meet with more success.
This reminds me of the scene in Simon Birch, before coming out of his shell, when he says “What I want to do and what I do are separate things, If we went around doing what we wanted all the time, there would be chaos”.
Such worry about doing whatever we want is real, but it’s important that we constantly ask what matters most? So long as you are kind, then it would be hard to argue against the idea that mental health and not having regrets should be our default. We can get to the work, the things you don’t want to do (if you must still do them) after you have built a foundation of pursuing passions you love and what matters to you and others on your final day.
As much as you can, have fun, Do you first ! We can deal with the chaos later…