Three Months After Quitting Teaching: What I Realized About Being Bound by Time After Becoming Independent

I resigned from my teaching position in the spring, and for a while, something felt off.

I have plenty of time.
I also have freedom.

Yet, for some reason, I couldn't seem to get moving.

I wake up around 7:00 every morning, but there is no school to go to. There is no staff room. I don't hear the voices of children.

What should I do today?

That question kept spinning around in my head.

Living by the chime for 26 years

Starting with the morning meeting, followed by the first period, lunch, cleaning, and the closing meeting. After that, there were scheduled meetings, training sessions, and discussions.

My sense of working was perfectly fitted into an absolute structure of timetables and schedules.

I remember feeling restless even on days when I took a sudden day off.

I think my body was waiting for the chime.

I only realized that after I resigned.

I had been living my life managed by time.

This is neither a criticism nor a regret.
It was just the environment of the teaching profession, and I think it is the same in most companies.

However, having been immersed in school life for 26 years, the sense of managing my own time had faded away before I knew it.

I think it was ingrained in me without me even realizing it.

The same conditioning applied to money

As I thought about time,
the subject of money began to overlap in my mind.

My salary was deposited on a fixed day every month, and bonuses were guaranteed twice a year.
Teachers also have a retirement allowance system.

Because payday comes every month, I could live without having to think about money.

I held onto this feeling for a long time, too.
I lived my life as if it were natural, without even checking my bankbook.

But in exchange for that, there was something I had let go of.

The habit of 'thinking about the movement and flow of my own money.' That is the habit.

The number of people who 'know' about NISA and iDeCo as systems has increased.
However, I feel that surprisingly few people are 'incorporating them into their own lives.'

I feel there is a large gap between knowledge and actual experience.

I believe that what creates that gap is the long-standing conditioning, like mine, that 'someone else will manage it for me.'

One morning when I opened my planner

The turning point was something small.

On a Monday morning, two and a half months after I resigned, I opened my planner.

The weekly page was completely blank. There were no class schedules, meeting plans, or deadlines written down. There was nothing at all decided by someone else.

I wrote down 'what I want to do this week.'

It was the one and only goal I decided for myself, by myself.

Just by doing that, the way I moved through the day changed completely.

In the morning, I focused on writing my blog and notes.
I rested a little at noon, and in the afternoon, I prepared for my lecture.
By evening, I could truly feel that 'I accomplished this much today.'

Instead of being moved by someone else, I move myself based on what I have decided.

I grasped that feeling for the first time in my 50s.

Even in the school environment, I often had to think for myself to do my work, but now I have to start by thinking about 'what to do.'

You might think, 'At that age...'
But I now accept that whenever you realize it, that is the beginning.

A few things I want to tell teachers currently in the profession

I think the job of a teacher is one where 'both time and money are easily managed by others.'

Because it is stable, on the other hand, a state of 'not having to think for yourself' continues for a long time.

That is by no means a bad thing, and being able to face so many children within that stability is an irreplaceable experience.

However, when that structure suddenly disappears after retirement or leaving a job, what should one do?

I experienced that firsthand.

I was bewildered by how to use my time, and because I wasn't used to creating my own flow, there were days when I felt 'I should be free, but it's hard to move.'

I think it is useful to practice thinking about time and money as 'your own business' while you are still active, so that it will be helpful after you retire.

If you are currently feeling a vague sense of 'is it okay to stay like this?', please cherish that feeling.

I believe that feeling is the first sign to start moving.