Breaking an Old Rule I Never Meant To Keep

For as long as I can remember, ever since my early days of academia, there was this one rule I stuck to religiously. Every paper, every lecture note had to be perfectly formatted with a strict font and size guideline. It defined order in my chaotic life. But last week, I let myself get lazy. A casual evening turned into a marathon session of grading papers without setting up the perfect layout beforehand. The morning after, looking at that disorganized stack felt like a betrayal, not just to my principles but to all those students who expected perfection from me. I didn't even realize how much this rule meant until I broke it. It's silly, really, but now every time I look at that pile of papers, I feel a twinge of guilt and disappointment in myself.