I've been making my way through The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, and in one paragraph he asks, "Are you resisting your here and now?," and to this I audibly (alone in my bed on a Saturday morning) answered "YES." He then goes on to write:

Some people would always rather be somewhere else. Their "here" is never good enough. Through self-observation, find out if that is the case in your life. Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. The accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.

(emphasis mine)

I love that he writes, "...accept it totally." Because although I would love to remove myself from substitute teaching in preschool classrooms, or change my work situation, I still have to make a living. And it seems this is the only door the Universe is opening for me at the moment. So I would further infer that I need to accept it totally.

When I read that though I didn't take it as "accept defeat." I read it as "put your head at ease by being in the Now and accepting your situation." Almost as if the goal is to remove emotion from it-or at the very least negative emotion from it. I've been struggling with balancing actively searching for a job and just accepting where I'm at day-to-day with this sub assignment. I want to find my dream job, but I also need to be exactly where I am in order to appreciate the things already around me.

xxo