From the Teacher's Lounge - A Mixtape - Track 2

Track 2. “Warning” – Incubus (2001)
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Lyric: “She woke in the morning / She knew that her life had passed her by.”

🎧 Musical Critique:
Alt-rock meets atmospheric layering—grooving bass, cinematic guitars, and Brandon Boyd’s expressive vocals. The song builds tension without ever exploding, mirroring the feeling of waking up to an uncomfortable truth.

✏️ Teacher Advice:
It’s easy to lose yourself in this job. The pressing demands, the need to be their for your students… the to-do list… it becomes your identity. Don’t let your whole life become a checklist. Set boundaries. Prioritize yourself outside school. Remember: teaching is your work, not your worth. Stay awake to yourself.

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Dear New Teacher,
Incubus and their evolution from punk/metal to a more polished, introspective alt-rock sound seems to be one reason the band might resonate so deeply with a teacher like me, but I digress. There’s this line in “Warning” by Incubus that hits me l every time I hear it: “She woke in the morning, and she knew that her life had passed her by.

Whew.

That line…. is real. Especially in this profession.

Teaching will try to make you forget yourself. The emails. The meetings. The bulletin boards. The infinite open tabs and Google Docs. The Sunday scaries. The doing. It will demand and distract until you’re so wrapped up in being a “good teacher” that you forget what it means to be a whole human.

I say this with love and from experience: I’ve been that teacher.

The one staying until 5:30 to make the anchor chart just right. The one answering emails during dinner. The one who showed up even when her soul needed rest. The one who thought being “there for the kids” meant being everywhere for everyone but herself. It took make a good decade to break from that and I am still learning.

Some teachers you will wear that kind of work ethic like a badge of honor. I don’t anymore. I wear it like a lesson.

Because the most important thing I’ve learned--the thing I wish I could tattoo on every new teacher’s heart—is this:

You come first.

Not in a fluffy, self-care-Sunday, spa-day kind of way (though hey, do your thing).

I mean in a rooted, boundary-honoring, life-before-lessons kind of way.

Because you can’t build a meaningful, sustainable teaching career if you’re disappearing inside it. Because no job—not even this beautiful, messy, life-changing one—is worth letting your actual life pass you by.

And don’t let anyone guilt you into believing otherwise.

Take your personal days. Say no to the extra “opportunity” that drains you. Rest without justifying it. Eat lunch with people who make you laugh (or alone if that’s what recharges you.) Get outside. Turn the playlist up. Leave the grading for tomorrow.

Live your life.

Yes, teaching is meaningful. Yes, your students matter. But they need the version of you who is grounded, joyful, and alive.

Not the hollowed-out shell of someone trying to please everyone, trying to be everywhere all at once, trying to do it all while simultaneously burning yourself to the ground.

If you are like most teachers, this is a lesson you might have to learn over and over again. So let go of any guilt if you stumble through the practice of putting you first.

I thought I had owned this truth of putting myself first above all else a decade ago…. but this year, when a medical heart drama put me out for 6 weeks (you won’t be surprised to hear many doctors assume it was teaching, secondary trauma and more hard to believe are real events at work that triggered it) it was a parent of a student (and now dear friend) that urged me to listen to both my body and the doctors and go on leave. Until that day—the day my friend walked up to me during my lunch break, embraced me in a hug and reminded me that my students would be okay, but my family needed me— I was still there, showing up, trying to push through unimaginable physical symptoms. And when I gave myself the time and space to heal, I was welcomed back with grace and love by my Marigolds.

That’s what “Warning” is trying to say, to me. Wake up. Don’t wait. Be present in your own life. So before you lose yourself to the “must do’s,” own this truth. There are no must do’s pressing enough to put before yourself.

Be human first. Teacher second.

And when the pressure builds, when the inbox is full, when the lesson flops and the hallway is too loud—put this song on. Turn it up. Let it remind you: This is your life. Don’t miss it. You are replaceable at work, while its also true that the work matters and matters deeply, it doesn’t matter as much as you do.

You’ve got this. And I’m rooting for the whole you.

With honesty and deep respect,
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--A Veteran Teacher Who is Also Learning to Listen to the Warning