‘Do you ever think about quitting?’ ‘Only once every two minutes or so’
Credit
My boyfriend recently took me to watch Wild, a true story about Cheryl Strayed who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail in search of herself and everything in between. It featured all of my favorite landscapes from the west coast of America as well as some brilliant acting from Reece Witherspoon. Not only that but it made you think, about your own life and how far you would go to put it back together again.
This blog has absolutely nothing to do with this film, expect for the quotes and the thinking it provoked for days after. The quote above suck with me for days and weeks after about my own life. I’ve been doing a Primary Education degree for the past four and a bit months, something that I equally love and hate at the same time. No more so than the last five weeks while I’ve been on placement. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve thought ‘that’s it, I’m quitting’. It has always been about the end result with this degree but getting there is slowly killing me and I’ve not even completed the first year yet.
University isn’t for me, I’ve never been a person to jump through the hoops just to score the highest grade. I’ve always struggled to stick to the brief of a project or essay and don’t handle the stress of being snowed under with homework. I hate having to read for my course because I can’t face picking up a book for pleasure. I’ve begun loathing writing for pleasure because I have to write so much for university. Over the last four months I’ve repeatedly said that if I could qualify as a teacher by working for free for the next three years I would take that over doing this degree and having to attend lectures and write essays.
Over the last few years I’ve picked up so many hobbies and projects I struggle to find the time to balance everything. I enjoyed having a job I leave behind when I sign out for the day, not the mountains of paperwork that comes with teaching. I’ve already found things to fill my spare time with adjusting to fit everything in, isn’t coming easy. I’m a person who puts both feet into a project but I’m struggling to do so, with any of this university work. All the things that fitted in to my life perfectly last year, everything I had time for and enjoyed are becoming the bane of my life this year. I’m fed up with being poor, I’m tired of being tired and I’m feeling more suffocated by staying still than ever before.
I want to travel and I want to go now. I’ve learnt that I struggle to commit to anything that leaves me tied down. I’m no good at trying to be a ‘grown up’, get a career and settle down a little. Settling down stresses me out, I like to be free, I like to be able to take opportunities that are thrown at me and I like not knowing what I’m doing from year to year. Even after four and a bit months I’ve not settled into university, I normally find a change to my situation easy to deal with. Still with this change there is part of my that doesn’t want to let it in. I don’t want to stay still, I don’t want to say no because I can’t afford anything and I certainly don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my life, which I frequently do.
All this being said, I’m not quitting, not yet anyway…
I’ve got to think of the end goal, the opportunities that being qualified to teach will open up for me. The freedom I will have to work all over the world, the lives I can change and help along the way. I may never have enough time for all of my hobbies as well as being the best teacher I can be but with time I will learn to manage everything better. One day I am going to want to settle down, to have a sustainable career and if I don’t do this degree now I will never do it. I just wish someone who have warned me it would be this hard before I began.
All the beautiful pictures with quotes by Cheryl are from She Knows
Tags: Honest Post Life Quotes University Wild
