I’m teaching a painting class at our local Jewish community high school program this fall, as I often do. It’s fun and encourages me to both be creative and stay connected with older students and the community in general. Adding a little extra money to my bank account doesn’t hurt either! Anyway, usually I get maybe 8-10 students who sign up for my classes, which is a fine number out of fifty or sixty students in the program (it’s a two hour program where the first hour is split up by grade level for core classes, and then in the second hour they can choose one of several elective course offerings). It makes for a pretty laid-back hour where we all flex our artistic muscles at an easy pace, creating paintings that align with a particular theme or concept I’ve come up with for that session.

So, last week was the first week of the program. During the first week, the faculty introduce the elective class options to the students so they can sign up for what they prefer to take. The elective classes officially begin this coming week. I always ask the program director to let me know how many signups I have, so that I can make sure I have enough canvases and other supplies.

Imagine my great surprise this past week to hear that I have like 18 signups for my painting class! Thats nearly double the interest that I usually have. After rechecking the signups, I think we settled on 16 students for my class in the end.

So crazy! Immediately my mind tried to make it make sense. Maybe I oversold it when I introduced the class. Maybe the other electives sounded like more “work” and teenagers didn’t want to have to do too much. Maybe other options didn’t sound as interesting. Maybe they thought it might be the easiest class to skip out on during the semester.

This was where I stopped myself, inside my head.

Because maybe — just maybe — it’s a class that they genuinely are interested in and want to participate in! Maybe it genuinely appeals to them! Maybe they want to take my class because I’m going to teach a really great class!

There’s often an instinct to get suspicious at any sign of success. When things may go poorly, we are so quick to internalize that, but at the same time, when things may go well, the default is to look for external factors to explain it. I want to change that about myself. I want to try to accept that success is in fact something I’m allowed to own. I’m allowed to lean into the positive spin on things.

I’m going to teach a painting class to more teenagers than ever before, and it’s going to be awesome. Full stop!