Last week I started a teaching stint at my former high school. It's been a few years since I've taught there and two things stood out:

1. I barely knew anyone
2. Barely anyone knew me

Staff turnover meant I knew maybe a third of the staff (a handful of them former students). More than that, students were more likely to know my wife (their 2nd grade teacher) than know who the heck I was.

One student, upon walking into class said, "Are you like one of those...wannabe teachers?" I think she meant student-teacher, but I laughed regardless.

Then there was the signage:

To cap off the week, though, I got this note from my colleague's daughter, who is in my wife's 2nd grade class:

All this reminded me of two key findings in well-being research:

1. Well-being is just as much about the presence of good as the absence of bad.
2. Well-being is often more about frequency than intensity of positive emotions.

Life is really, really, really friggin' hard and stressful and scary sometimes. But we won't have the energy to reduce the bad without fuel from emotions like joy, love, and amusement. Nor will we have the desire to keep going without emotions like hope, belonging, and pride.

Last week was a reminder to curate more positivity in my life -- like innocent jest from students or intentional jokes from colleagues. I'd like you to do the same.

So, I have a homework assignment for you:

Try out one of the life assignments from Chapter 1 of my book The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again (#6 is the one I'm doing this week). It's all about mindsets and strategies to resist Debbie Downerism and toxic positivity -- seeking little moments of authentic goodness in our days.

Here's a free copy of the chapter below.

​The Burnout Cure - Chapter 1 - Curate Goodness.pdf​

Give it a read. Give it a go. Then give me a message about a positive emotion you experience this week!

With that, I'm sending you all a huge air five to start out your week.

Sincerely, your nerdy "wannabe teacher" next door,

Chase 2% Mielke