The hardest act to commit to as a teacher is giving up control to your students.
While this can be interpreted as letting your students run the class, which I would highly recommend against, it’s actually a call to act as a guide for students in the direction they want you to lead them towards. The role of the teacher today is to open up doors and inspire students to becoming their own active learners.
Nothing about that has changed since the dawn of mentor/mentee relationships, but it may look differently depending the era.
Writing works best when you get out of the way of your conscious mind and let your subconscious go to work. It’s hard to give up control of your fingers (or voice if you’re in the world of dictation), but the results end up being your true voice.
It is my contention the reason there is the stereotype of writers being synonymous with copious amounts of alcohol is the booze acts as an agent to clear the path for the subconscious. In other words, it keeps them honest. Nowadays, we know about habit formation, flow and the fact there is a subconscious to give writers the edge they need without the substance.
As a parent, it’s tough to watch your children make mistakes, experience pain and struggle to figure things out. You want to intervene at every point, but intuitively, you know you need to step back and let the lesson happen. It’s how they grow.*
The hardest thing for a child to do is admit their parents were right (and if you have decent to wonderful parents, you will admit this many… many… times). Once you get your ego out of the way, your bond with your parents grows stronger.
If you’re trying to make a point and someone is barreling down on you like a train… step off the track until they plow through and then get back on to make your point again.
Giving up control is hard.
The results of doing it are magical.
*I don’t advocate a complete hands-off approach. My strong opinion is you should always intervene when your child is in danger and assist them when you have the means to do so. The best gift my parents gave me was an education that was debt-free at the end.