She was thrown into a very difficult situation in a very difficult time — I got a text message in the middle of vacation the other week: “Hey Ryan, Ms. Jennings died.” I got the news that a colleague I worked very closely with passed away suddenly. I will be honest: at the time, I didn’t feel anything besides “oh, that’s really sad.” …

Living your life in fear isn’t really living — “Don’t write about controversial topics or say your opinions, Ryan. It come back to haunt you years from now. You’re going to be a lawyer.” I wish these were just words someone else told me — it would make it easier to just shrug them off. …

Sometimes we just need to acknowledge daily life is absolutely unbearable — “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” — Robert Frost It’s a strong belief of mine that sometimes, the hardest part of life is just making it through the day. We’ve all experienced it: sometimes, daily life is just unbearable. Sometimes, we…

Different things work for different people — this medication didn’t work for me. — Disclaimer: this article is a recounting of a personal experience with the guidance of a mental health professional. Please do not stop taking any medication without consulting a doctor or professional. A medication usually receives a lot of negative reviews when you feel the side effects for a month before…

I think we sometimes overthink sleep — In the past couple of years, I’ve doubled down on trying to get eight to nine hours of sleep a night. …

The journey of progress and improvement is never linear — I’ve been running competitively for the past 12 years, with five marathons and three half marathons under my belt. I woke up suddenly around 2:45 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, and I have another marathon in four hours where I’m going for a personal best. …

Being a classroom teacher will always be the most important job in education — “Wow, it seems a lot calmer here than my school last year,” I said. “It seems like there aren’t as many fights here.” I was about to head home after a long day in my office job as an IEP chair (someone who deals with paperwork to meet legal mandates…

You’ll come back later with more energy, motivation, and ideas — It’s not like I wanted to, but I’ve barely written anything in the past month or so. There’s a pretty simple reason for that — the summer ended. I started my new job in special education leadership. I started going to law school at night. This makes me occupied from…

It’s okay we’re not always paragons of purity and virtue — I was looking at the results of the prestigious 5th Avenue Mile. This is a world-class race with the most elite runners in the world. There were, of course, all these super elite runners who ran miles under 4 minutes, which is expected. But as I scrolled down the results…