When Enjoyment becomes Guilt

I have been picking back up the habit of journaling since the beginning of the year and this habit has brought me to notice things that I hadn't before. One of it I realized recently. It goes like this. I am to trainer, and since the Covid thingy has left us reliant on online training, that's what most of my week looks like. We have been getting great participants for our financial literacy training too, since most students actually joined by own initiative rather than being forced by the college or university. We don't have much issue trying to get our messages across. 

So I worked with this particular trainer a lot, and though she had never done anything outright wrong or anything, somehow I always lowkey is ticked off by her but I could never pin point where. I know it's probably something that I do myself that I hate, and I see it off her. Anyway, this is just to set the perception straight that I might view this with a hint of bias anyway, so just putting it out there that I'm not denying my own bias.

Anyway, the training went on great. The students were smart, bright, caught on quickly. They are extremely witty and were really active in the chat box, making jokes and calling each other out. I felt friendly and close with this group, and since they were still paying attention and catching on, I don't mind them playing around in the chat and even joined in the bantering a little while my colleague is training. For me it didn't seem much of a problem since I didn't actually interrupt the class and the training is still effective. However later my colleague asked me to not "layan" or entertain the students so much in the group chat. I understand if I were disturbing the class by drawing their attention away, but this is university students we are talking about, not kindergarten kids. I promptly agreed not to rock the boat but I remember feeling so hesitant about ever being friendly with the students I very much want to interact with. Soon, my enjoyment is also guilt.

This whole ordeal led to me question, why do I feel upset by her request to not entertain the students too much? Is it my own bias that I couldn't take anything she said without offense, or does that actually affected me? Meanwhile I admit that true, I wouldn't want my co-trainer to be creating more chaos while I'm trying to do my job as well. Yet part of me felt it was uncalled for because if our objective is to teach the students certain things and have it a fun session, we are still achieving that. Why can't we have fun while doing our job? Her request and the subsequent effect brings me back to the time where I felt that I couldn't be myself at my office setting. Anxiety, not knowing if it's okay to do this or that, questioning myself when in fact what I did wasn't wrong. I understand where she's coming from, but I also wonder when is it boundary and when is it projection? Could it be her projection that she also have a sense of anxiety that present itself by controlling situations? Or is it plain just the way we are brought up to think of discipline means no fun is allowed? 

And I wonder how many kids are ruined this way? How many kids are told to not have fun because it means we are not obedient or doing the right thing? When objective of school/classes are for us to learn, teachers rarely realized the control they impose on the kids are merely as assertion of dominance, yet we are taught that it means learning is most efficient. But if we think of how we learn as a kid, we learn the most when we feel safe and we can play. Heck, I learnt that yellow + blue gives out green when I pee into my blue colour potty with my concentrated pee. Controlled playing isn't unprofessional, nor does it signify disobedient or disrespect. I hope we can just normalize this and stop making people's enjoyment a fault.