Choice

If there’s a rule in our life task, I suppose it would be best gleaned from the Grant Study, which followed the lives of hundreds of Harvard-educated men. That is a longitudinal study tracking people all the way from undergraduate class to their death, decades later.

In his book How To Know a Person, the New York Times Opinion columnist David Brooks described the study findings and mentioned how a person moves from core task to a leadership position. A teacher in the classroom, for instance, goes on to become an administrator in the office. A reporter goes on to be an editor. 

Not all of us can accept or like these promotions. Many a time, teachers love direct interaction with students and prefer to preserve their sense of self. All choices involve loss: If you take administration job, you don’t take that teaching one. Administration duty takes people away from the core task that lets a teacher fall in love with the profession in the first place. It really is impossible to know which job is a better one. Listening to your heart is one way, but be prepared that the second job on the next rung is often paid better.