Friday 1 February 2013

Safety

"If you are just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow." - Heath Ledger

So I've decided to quit my counselling course. Not based on this quote, I'm not quite that rash, it just goes rather nicely with the thinking behind the process. My whole life has been geared towards success (ooh-err) - throughout school and college I was one of those students who ended up being 'groomed' for university. I think they look at you and see lawyers, doctors...ultimately, you're headed for university. I thrived on this (somehow, considering my love of lie-ins and Neighbours) and never considered an alternative future. It turns out my university experience wasn't all that I'd hoped, which is another story entirely, though I did meet the most incredible friend in the most incredible city, so I can't complain. 
The pressure comes back tenfold towards the end of your final year, clear case of #firstworldproblems I know, when pretty much the only question you will hear is "what are your future plans?" 

I spent the best part of that final year thinking I wanted to be a primary school teacher until I woke up one morning and remembered I don't really like children. HILARIOUS. The following few months were spent in a blind panic trying to decide, yes decide, what I wanted to do with my life. No niggling gut feeling pointing me in the right direction, or a yearning for a certain career that couldn't be quashed. Only now am I starting to realise that perhaps I don't need a career. A job, oh god yes I need a job. But a career? One set thing for the rest of my life? I'm not sure. I don't want to hop from job to job, I would very much like to be settled, and I can't deny that there isn't a rather large ball of panic travelling at increasing speed from my tummy to my throat, but... I don't think those are my issues. I think they're the world's issues. And I really can't be bothered to get into THAT kind of "ugh, society" post, so I'll leave it there. Suffice it to say that I am currently unsure, but happy. It feels new and weird and very much against my nature. I definitely have moments of shame when I imagine my teachers finding out that I am essentially floating with no real direction, but let's focus on that old word "happy" for now shall we... Hopefully the rest will follow.

No comments:

Post a Comment