Life: on university

Thoughts from a two year 'gap year'





(between sixth form and uni) 

"Now sweetheart. I don't mind if you don't go to University; but if you do go, I want to make it very clear that you should have a year out before you go. A gap year."
I'm sat writing this on the train home from London; listening into a wide eyed sixteen year old and her mother discuss University. It's the first time I've heard a parent actively encourage (if not pressure) their child into a gap year; "but what if I don't want to?"  I want to interject, to tell her it's the best thing to do; but I don't.

Ironically I'm travelling home from a University interview; my head a mess of decisions and what ifs. I've just been offered a place at my dream University; but I've already decided I'm not going to take it.
Life has been full of great decisions and choices as of recent; and the control freak in me is not thriving. I'm a terrible decision maker, and since reading The Alchemist I fear I've become somewhat of a 'philosophical ditherer.' Every decision I make now seems to reflect a wider plan the world holds for me. So, for once in my life to be so sure about something puts my mind at ease.

My phone is a buzz of messages asking how it went, congratulating me. In addition to my terrible decision making, another flaw of mine is foolishly caring too much what people around me think. But in the words of Courtney Barnett; "Nobody Really Cares if You Don't Go To The Party."




"Thanks," I reply. I won't be going to that University; on my own accord. But it's ok, and I know it.

University is a funny thing. It's a lot of money; and realistically you only get one shot (unless you have megabucks, in which case I say get as many degrees as money can buy) putting an enormous amount of pressure on any decision related to the subject. There's a lot of snobbery associated with University too. I understand it of course, and I am absolutely guilty of judging degrees and judging universities: as I'm sure others are too. But a degree is a degree and it's a feat and an achievement, period.

I was with friends the other night talking about life and choices. How different life could be had you not got on that train, drunk that coffee, had you not lived in those halls. It's exciting to think that we're all still yet to meet people who will play a huge role in our futures to come; and it's those moments and encounters that we can't control that make us unapologetically human. I think we all have a desire to be in control, and my choice to not attend my 'dream uni'; to go somewhere else is a reflection of that. My tiny decision is the only control I hold in what will become a whole chapter of my life. Everything is already in the works, so why should we worry about what's to come?

"The greatest threat to our happiness is often our misplaced determination to control our destiny. We need to learn to be shape shifters, embracing ups and downs, fulfillment and frustration and people who move in and out of our lives... A hamster on a wheel endlessly treading the same space is the definition of hell, but we should be equally fearful about trying to control the pace of change and where and when it occurs. It's ironic that the defining feature of all our lives- the inevitability of nothing staying as it is- is what we battle hardest against." 

I saw this brilliant quote the other day from this advice column, and felt it summarises my current feelings of the future and of 'fate' soo perfectly.

Hope you are all well as always,

Lexie