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| Does this look like a butt to anybody else? |
“All happy
families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” is perhaps
one of the most famous lines in all of literature and, thus, opens Leo
Tolstoy’s massive Russian novel Anna
Karenina. You would be lying if you have not heard some variation of that
line above; it is used in reference to many stories (and families) today. After
all, you don’t go to the movies or turn on your TV to watch a happy family live
out their days. That would be boring. As much as all of us loves to see a happy
ending, we like the road to happiness to be as complicated as possible. But if
you are Tolstoy, you don’t want a pretty house on the hills to be the end of
the road. No, you want the car to crash and everybody to end up in a burning
blaze. Sorry to be depressing, but Anna
Karenina does not have a happy ending.
Believe it
or not, despite this, I am excited to write this post. Even though I did not
like this book, I feel like I have a lot to say. (I know, you are probably
thinking “Leigh, do you like any books?” Yes, I do. I’ve just read a lot of
clunkers lately). Rather than focusing on all the dreary and depressing aspects
of this novel and how frustrating a found the characters, I am choosing to
focus on the positive aspects. I feel like I need it and probably you too especially,
with the kinds of things you see on the news lately.
One of my
favorite lines from this novel comes hiding in the middle of the dense eight
hundred-something page novel from Karenin to his young son. He tells him “If
you love the work, you will find your reward in that,” (Tolstoy 52). Now, this
concept is nothing new to us. We hope that we can find a job doing what we love
because if you have to spend your time working, you may as well be doing
something you enjoy. No one wants to spend their time doing something they hate
or they are not passionate about. But how many people do you know don’t find
some happiness in their work? How many people view their job as simply a place
of employment; a way to get money? And how many people do you know are actually
passionate about what they do day to day even when it is tough? I am someone
who is lucky to do what I am passionate about and enjoy doing it. I am not
saying that I have trying days or trying weeks or even trying months. Being a
teacher is extremely draining and if you are someone like me, who puts their
heart into everything they do, you can take mishaps and one foul student’s
remarks extremely personally. Despite the difficulties, I can’t picture myself
doing anything else and there are so many students who show me kindness and
gratitude on a daily basis. There have been days that I have gone home crying
so upset over something that has happened at work, but there are also times I
find myself in tears because a student has told me about the impact I have
made. One student told me at the end of my first year teaching that he never
thought he could write a full blown essay at the beginning of the year. By the
end of the year, he said he felt confident writing a pretty good essay because
of the way I broke it down for him. Moments like these make my heart warm and
is the reason why I do what I do. I like helping my students uncover the
strength and talents they never knew they had.
Many of the
characters struggle with finding happiness in this novel. No one is happy in
their relationships and when it seems like they are, they question it. For
example, Levin finally marries the girl he has been pining over for years
(Kitty) and his reaction is “Wait, this is it?” Anna runs off with her lover
Vronsky and she becomes depressed because she worries that he will have an
affair with someone else. These characters just cannot let themselves be happy.
I think happiness is somewhat of a choice, if not a complete choice. You don’t
wake up one morning and you are magically happy without any effort. For me,
happiness is a choice I have to make every day. It is so easy to let yourself
get bogged down by what you don’t have and what other people have therefore
limiting your happiness. Society has set standards of what it means to be
happy; of what and who you need to have in your life in order to be happy. This
can be stressful. It is hard to do, but when you start asking yourself what you
actually enjoy and what actually makes you feel happy, you can learn a lot
about yourself. For me, I often feel the pressure of making others happy, both
in my job and in my personal life, but I realized that I am never going to make
other people happy if I don’t make sure I am happy first. That is why I take
time for myself. I make sure to read a chapter of a book before bed during the
hectic days of coaching and teaching because holding a book instantly relaxes
me. I keep a relatively consistent yoga practice because it makes me feel
strong both physically and emotionally. I make myself some break and bake
cookies when I have a chocolate craving because I know it is important to treat
myself. I choose to take care of me because I know I am a more beneficial
member of society when I am happy.
I know I have gone off on a tangent with this post and have
not really focused on the literary aspects of Anna Karenina (I could’ve bored y’all to death on literary realism),
but I felt like I had more important points to hit. This post was an important
one for me because I really felt like sharing some positivity and
encouragement, as it is the start of a new school year. Even those of us who
are not teachers or students still need a little boost around this time. I hope
you all are happy that and part of that happiness comes from within. You all
deserve that happiness <3
Random Tidbits
- I read the sequel to The
Shining called Doctor Sleep. It
was a very enjoyable book, but it is very different than its predecessor. It
holds a faster pace and brings in a different sort of supernatural element. It
won’t be a classic like The Shining,
but it doesn’t need to be.
- Anna Karenina
concludes the books listed in episode two of Gilmore Girls. Only two episodes down in about a hundred something
episodes. I got a long way to go.
- I wrote this post while watching the 2012 film adaptation of Anna Karenina with Keira Knightly
(boy does she do a lot of period pieces). Honestly, I didn’t pay attention too
much, but the music was very soothing.
Pictures
Book Cover 1:https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51vPf2CfSEL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Book Cover 2:http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1339337/images/o-ANNA-KARENINA-facebook.jpg
Movie Poster: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/AnnaKarenina2012Poster.jpg/250px-AnnaKarenina2012Poster.jpg
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