To Care or Not to Care

I care about EVERYTHING. Here are some things I care about and in no particular order:

• What the ajummas ("middle-aged women" in Korean) at the gym will think if I don't shower before I get into the pool
• What the ajummas at the gym will think if I don't wash my shower bucket out before returning it
• My mom's health/well-being
• My dad's mental sanity in being my mom's primary caregiver
• Not being liked by students/friends/community
• Failing and how that will be perceived by those around me

What (society tells me) I should care about but I don't:

• Brushing my hair before I leave the house (my husband will often chase me around the house with a hair brush)
• Making sure I don't have leftover toilet paper remnants on my face after I dry it in the morning
• Cleaning/organizing my desk both at home and at work
• Laughing less loudly so I don't disturb others around me in public
• Grooming myself more (hair removal, make-up, nails, etc.)

My first week teaching at GMUK (George Mason University Korea), my husband asked me how it went, and I burst into tears. I lamented how students talk over me, they don't listen to me, they speak Korean the whole time, and don't really do the fun activities I asked them to do. I spent my first two weeks, stressing about this, and a few students who were on the extreme end. I vented to friends, family, and basically anyone who would listen to me.

Did I care too much?

Then I decided to tell the students openly and honestly how I felt, so I recounted the exact same story of how my husband had asked how my first week went and I had cried. Almost immediately, I could feel the air in the room had totally changed: gone were the attitudes, students started sitting up, paying attention, speaking English, and actually doing the activities. The change was palpable.

Had I not cared enough to tell them, would they have cared enough to change?

At a ladies lunch this past week, an expat friend lamented about how she felt judged for showing up at school not dressed to the nines. Her comment was greeted with "WHAAAT?!" all around, and another expat friend chimed in saying that she felt judged for driving the "crappiest" car of all the hagwon ("after-school academic center" in Korean) owners when she used to own a hagwon.

"What kind of car do you drive?" I asked, half expecting her to say a Honda or a Toyota.
"A Chevrolet Spark," she replied. Again, she was met with a chorus of "WHAAAT?!"

More and more stories were revealed about the pressure to look, act, dress a certain way. As the ladies were talking, I started thinking: Why do women put that kind of pressure on other women? I mean, let's face it, if we could, we would all walk around in our pajamas, right? Or was it a matter of caring? Did the women who dressed up care too much about how they looked? And for the women who didn't get dressed up, did they care too much about what people would say if they didn't? After all that's said and done, shouldn't we be worried about what kinds of mothers people are on the inside, rather than how they dress on the outside? 

Perhaps all the caring was misdirected. Imagine if all of that energy put into caring about what other people thought was put into caring about themselves?

During this past week at GMUK, I cared a little bit less--about 10% less. Even though there were a few students who seemed spaced out, not paying attention, chatting with their friends, I didn't take it personally. As a student myself in Bootcamp, I was recently "caught" chatting with another friend during an exercise. I loved my Bootcamp class, I loved my instructor, and I loved my fellow class-mates. It was nothing personal. As humans, we get distracted, we want to catch up with friends, and try our darndest to multi-task, knowing it's a dying art.

So I guess my takeaway is care, but care 10% less about what (you may perceive) people are thinking of you. Use that extra 10% to care for yourself.