"When people get sick and stop doing the things they lived for in the first place, they only get sicker." — Delmond Lambreux in Treme.

I have a million things to do as a first-year Baltimore City special-ed teacher: I'm more than a week behind on grading. I have to write multiple IEPs and progress reports in coming weeks. I have to spend hours planning lessons and making worksheets. I have to call parents and keep them updated on how their kids are progressing academically. I have to go to class to shore up my teaching techniques.

At home, I have bills and parking tickets to pay, car maintenance issues to address, laundry to do, trash to take out, food to cook, and a room to clean. I am woefully behind on all these tasks, especially cleaning my room.

I am busy. I am tired. I am overwhelmed. And I can't imagine what that reality is like for some of my friends and co-workers that have kids, let alone multiple kids.

But I still have a life, and just because I am busy, tired, and overwhelmed doesn't mean I should neglect that.

I still do things I love, although less of it. I still spend time with my friends. I still maintain a fulfilling relationship. I still keep in touch with friends and my own parents, spend far too much time refreshing and checking fantasy football, and I still write. I still run as much as I can. I still go to church for over two hours on Sundays, and still read my Bible every day and pray for good people in my life.

All of these things and other obligations and hobbies in my life make me a better teacher and person, not worse. Just because I am tired, busy, and overwhelmed doesn't mean that I have to put aside the things that I live for in the first place.

In fact, if I neglected writing, running, or my relationships, I would go crazy. If I put all my time and energy into work, I wouldn't have the sanity to go into a very high-stress job and trauma-filled environment and not have a breakdown.

As an inner-city special ed teacher, I can take it when a kid repeatedly tells me to "get out of my face" or calls me "Bruce Lee" or "Jackie Chan" as an Asian teacher, and go home and laugh it off. I can not take it personally to my aptitude as a teacher when my kids don't do their work. I do my best to make sure my kids have their needs met at school, whether that's food, water,

But I am only one person tackling a variety of systemic issues such as de facto segregation and poverty. It takes a whole school and community to come together and make sure our kids are getting the bests support they need, but to do that, we have to make sure we ourselves are taken care of and maintain our sanity.

I have preached before that there's no such thing as wasting time, and my time in school teaching has only drastically affirmed that notion. No matter how myself and my kids are spending our time, no matter how far behind we are on curriculum or what test scores may reflect, we're always learning. I learn as much from the kids as they learn from me. Time spent having free time at lunch, discussing our home and personal lives are as educational as time spent reading All Quiet on the Western Front or analyzing historical document based questions (DBQs).

Part of my life includes having those moments with kids to build relationships. I believe in relationships over rules. I believe in teaching students over following a curriculum. But it is in my day-to-day practice and interactions that it's so hard to follow those beliefs. How do I not feel pressure to hurry along when my class is eight lessons behind? How do I not cut a more chatty student off and stop listening when they're going off about something completely unrelated to what we're learning?

The only thing that allows me to chill out and prioritize relationships over rules and curriculum are, well, having a life. Building relationships is the most important thing in life, as loving your neighbor is the greatest law in the Bible, according to Galatians 5:14. And one of the most important things to learn in relationships is compromise. I have to compromise with my friends and my partner when I give my time to them, as I have to compromise with my roommates on how to split bills.

I know how important my job is, and I'm very committed and devoted to it. Yes, being a Baltimore City teacher isn't just what I do. It's part of my identity. It's who I am. Despite feeling like my classroom has been an absolute dumpster fire, I was selected teacher of the month for my devotion and relationships with my students and my ability to consistently be willing to go the extra mile for my co-workers and students all the time.

Having things to look forward to, a life worth living for, is how I be the best teacher I can be. Working yourself to death means you're going to get sick. It means you'll get more tired. Because I've prioritized still having a life, I've only missed one day so far for a personal reason. Just because I'm not planning a lesson or doing something work-related doesn't mean I'm not becoming a better teacher: what I did over the weekend helps me build relationships with my kids and the movie I watched helps me teach kids about character and theme.

I know a lot of people believe in separating work and life. But I don't believe in such a thing, because everything is connected. What I learn and experience at work is inevitably going to influence how I navigate life, and vice versa. Yes, there's the point of respecting people's experiences and confidentiality, but everything does spill over.

But why do we see that as a bad thing? I've learned better coping mechanisms for anxiety as an inner-city teacher, like actually sleeping, than I have at any other point of my life. I've learned how to build great relationships with my kids and co-workers by having great relationships and conversations with friends, family, partner, and church. Being a Christian and helping out at my church or in my volunteer work, without asking for anything in return, allows me to do the same for my co-workers and kids.

Yes, being the teacher is the crux of who I am. But it's not all I am, and likewise, you are not just your job. You might be a parent, a spouse, just like I am a congregation member, brother, son, and friend.

Having a life is essential for maintaining that balance and realize you're not just a singularity. You are complex with a lot of different things going on in your life.

Not having a life reduces you to a singular thing: a role, title, or position. Wise veteran teachers informed me to stop trying to catch up on grading or other mounting obligations, because the most valuable lessons they learned in decades of education was this: you never catch up.

I taught my kids today about George Washington didn't actually win many battles. His most valuable trait as a General in the Continental Army was knowing when to retreat. He knew how to use his losses and defeats to incorporate them into overall victory, and likewise we should know when to throw in the towel when we're busy, tired, and overwhelmed, because that's how we'll maintain our sanity and achieve our best success.

So go to your kid's big event. Catch up on your favorite TV show. Go back to the gym. Go on a date. Listen to your favorite album. Call a friend you've been out of touch with. Get more sleep.

Like me, you're probably busy, tired, and overwhelmed too. But you can still have a life, and you need to, and your life is more important than whatever you have to do, anyways.