I started today angry.

I’m usually a fairly mild-mannered person––I think I at least come off that way to most people––but I definitely have my angry moments. Today I was in the mood for angry rants, angry. I was angry at the injustice rampant in this world. Angry at the stupidity of people. Angry at the misconceptions people have that lead to poor decisions and poorer outcomes. Some things are just so messed up!

I thought today would be a “no game day” at school for sure. I didn’t have energy to play games with my students. I didn’t feel like giving in to their constant demands for fun. I don’t appreciate my students badgering me about having “game time” on good days, but today? We were going to buckle down and learn these English grammar rules right!

However, I actually ended up playing a lot of games with my classes today. And I actually had a lot of fun.

There were a lot of little moments of connecting with students: laughing at the girl who acted out every single vocabulary word the exact same way (which drove her classmates crazy); making my students gasp in horror when I confessed that I only brush my teeth once a day; chastising students for having eaten too much sugar before class in a way that made them feel loved and noticed.

Those little moments lifted me out of my anger funk.

This evening, it was difficult to even remember that I had started off the day in such a negative place. Not that I don’t still wish certain things were different. Not that the injustices that bothered me this morning don’t bother me now. They just weren’t sticking to me anymore.

Which I’m glad for. Because I don’t need to spend all my time meditating on the bad things I can’t control. It’s a far better use of my time to focus on the people in front of me who are needing and asking for my attention. There is a time to be angry, to process, and to expose the bad. And then there’s a time to let it go and enjoy the good.