My Professional Y2K
Fear of the unknown is brutal and normal
Hello readers! I have been away from home at a work conference since Sunday morning and desperately wanted to get this to you, but also whew, it has been a whirlwind. I just got back to my hotel room at 9:00 on Monday night and finally sat down to write. Consider this raw and unedited piece a gift from the heart …
I have been attempting to explain the fear of Y2K to middle schoolers, in the context of it being the setting of this year’s Newbery winner, and with every single class this has evolved into a discussion of fear of the unknown. A student inevitably chortles when I start describing just how SCARED we all were, how my friends and I chose to hold our New Year’s Eve party that year in a cabin in the woods just in case, how it inspired widespread doomsday prepping, etc.
All of this to help them understand the state of mind of the main character in The First State of Being, whose anxiety in the fall of 1999 is rational and expected given our understanding of the situation at that time. I remind them over and over that it’s easy to look back on something we were petrified about and minimize those feelings because everything turned out fine ~ but the entire BASIS of that fear and anxiety is not knowing what would happen and how things would turn out.
These conversations were at the forefront of my mind this week heading into a presentation at a conference that I did not want to present, did not feel comfortable presenting, and was 100% certain would lead me to professional and personal doom. Rationally I knew that I had been teaching and presenting for 20 years, had led countless lessons and presentations about things I didn’t know quite enough about, and that everything would be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?
Here it is ~ my conference presentation Y2K: there would only be a few people in the room, they would refuse to engage in discourse, and I would be left standing and stammering at the front of my room by myself for an hour about something I didn’t really feel qualified to be talking about and had revealed myself to the audience as not knowing enough about.
Compared to the literal world ending or the electric grid permanently crashing, these are admittedly very low stakes. Stakes that nonetheless had been haunting me since I realized that as a part of my state-to-national liaison position I had signed a contract for, I was required to do this presentation as the blood for my conference-being-paid-for money. In the depths of my doom spiral over the past few weeks, blood money had never seemed more appropriate.
The fear about this was sucking the very life out of me, occupying every second of my waking hours, turning me into a very unpleasant person to be with and coloring my view of absolutely everything. Every time I reminded myself that literally 60 minutes of my life was all that was required of me, and that I could always talk about SOMETHING for 60 minutes, I would remember presentations I have gone to that were horrible. And that I still remembered them. AND I COULD BE REMEMBERED FOR THAT.
In contrast, immediately after this super scary presentation, I was scheduled to present about a topic I love and am super passionate about. A presentation that I barely even thought about because it was such a natural fit. Friends, I LOVE to talk about things I know about or care deeply about, or at least can explain in a knowledgeable and technical manner at a level above that of the people I am teaching.
It’s mind blowing just how differently my brain approached these two presentations. I was literally so frozen about the first one that I couldn’t prepare. I was given a boilerplate presentation by the national organization to use and every time I would sit down to prepare, I would just stare at it, reading the speaker notes and simply unable to see myself talking about it. I can’t memorize a script to save my life, and knew that I didn’t have the deep knowledge to talk off the cuff about the topic ~ WHAT THE HELL WAS I GOING TO DO? I am not one to procrastinate, and I pride myself on just doing the hard stuff, no matter how hard. However, this is as close as I have ever come to freezing and just …. not coming through . I mean, I had A presentation, but it would be excruciating to present as-is.
Part of my issue was that I was supposed to be SELLING something. That cost money. To school librarians. Who of course, don’t have enough personal money, and hell if I am going to be the person taking money from people with not enough money or even job security. I pride myself on the ability to sell, but ONLY things that don’t cost money, or that people can spend work money on. I mean, even in this very newsletter, when I’m essentially selling books twice a week, you aren’t required to spend MONEY to be able to read the books. You can get them from the library! See that loophole?
I left home at 7 a.m. on Sunday, firmly in my doom spiral, with a three hour drive to firmly allow that to settle into my marrow. To really drown myself, I made the inexplicable decision to listen to Money Lies and God by Katherine Stewart on the drive. Mind you, this book is a must-read for anyone trying to understand our current political cluster, but I really didn’t need the very real horrors and threats of Christian Nationalism to add to my sense of dread. Whew. I arrived at the conference certain that my session would crash and burn and right alongside, there would be a gang of rich white guys with guns coming for my country and liberties, probably DURING my session. Pleasant.
I sat through the keynote – Jerry Craft, he was amazing! – basically shaking and whimpering in fear, and the friend I was sitting with finally told me to just skip the first session before mine and go to my room and get it together. Even she couldn’t handle my freak out. It was gorgeous outside and instead of preparing for the undoable presentation, I made the always-right choice to go for a walk. Just 30 minutes to get my stuff together and at least breathe a little.
WHAT AN AMAZING DECISION.
I mean, while on said walk I didn’t have a brilliant breakthrough about the presentation, but I did release some energy, get some sunshine, and stretch my legs after a long drive and sitting during the keynote. I found a little pocket neighborhood next to the claustrophobic office park that the convention center lives in, and got to imagine the lives of people who live there and see a few trees. Honestly, walking near my hotels is one of my favorite parts of traveling, although I vastly prefer a bustling city or beautiful countryside to explore vs the (sob) concrete suburbs.
After this sunny 30 minute walk, it was down to crunch time ~ just enough time to wash up, do my hair again and get dressed … and figure out what the heck I was actually going to talk about.
And then.
Then I had the very logical and belated revelation that I needed to just talk about what I know. Not the provided presentation, but what I know and am passionate about regarding the topic. What would benefit attendees even if they didn’t have the money to spend. THAT I could do. I pulled up a few links and documents that showed evidence of what I wanted to assert, and ran out of time. All opportunities for figuring it out were over, but maybe I had enough?
And guess what? I had FOUR people attend because honestly, it was the least interesting session during that time slot. I got set up and asked the librarians present to pull up a chair closer to the front and I sat down and said, “Let’s chat.” That’s what I’m best at - leading conversations and just bouncing from there, so that’s what I did. I wove my “sell” into their authentic situations and challenges, and managed to talk WITH them for an hour with no excruciating dead zones. I feel like I spoke passionately about the topic, was honest about not wanting to sell them anything, but also managed to get my point across that if they DID have the money, it would be well worth spending on this.
Was it a success? I think so. I stayed true to my heart, I provided information people seemed to actually want, and I could have kept talking after the time was up. I have ideas for when I have to do this again, and I won’t even bother LOOKING at the boilerplate presentation next time. I should have known better ~ I have never been able to teach from other people’s curricular materials, and should have known that relying on that 45 slide presentation wasn’t my style.
All that to say …
Worrying is inevitable and normal
When at a loss, go for a walk
Don’t try to sell if it doesn’t feel right
Speak to what you know
When in doubt, just sit down and chat
Just like Y2K, it all turned out fine in the end — but me of the past certainly didn’t know that it would, and me of the future won’t be certain that it will turn out that way again.
Thanks for stopping by!
