Let's be real...

I'm not confident of my decision to be a teacher.
It's not for the most obvious reasons. I don't care that I won't be making huge amounts of money. I'm single afterall, and anything I make will be more than I'm making now. It's not the standardized testing, or the policies in place that dictates what and how I teach.

But more than that, I don't know that I can commit the way a teacher needs to commit. How do you give your whole life over to thirty plus people that will probably never appreciate you? How do you submit your time, your lifestyle to them? I'm still young, and I want to do all the young and fun and crazy things that come along with that. How do I do that, and wake up the next morning, telling my students to make good choices, teaching them to be intentional and wise, when I want to be irrational and reckless?

I guess this is perhaps put into greater perspective when you consider the age I want to teach (I think.) Middle school students begin to see through you, and the older they get the more likely it is that they will not believe you if you lie, and then grin. How do I keep my personal life and professional life as a teacher separate when so many teachers are being strung up for their personal actions in the media? Is this me being over cautious? Over anxious?

I took the first of a series of test yesterday, and my confidence wavered, or rather, continued to be undermined, after I realized I'm not even prepared for the test, much less teaching for a life time. I'm hoping this is just me freaking out, and that I'll get through it, but I really want to be making a decision that is RIGHT.How do I know?