Good Luck Exploring The Infinite Abyss
This post is inspired from this scene in the movie Garden State which you should watch if
you haven’t seen it. The scene on its own is a little cheesy but in the context
of the film is entirely perfect. Anyway, here it is in case you do want to
watch it.
In a little over a month, I’m going to graduate. Providing I
get round to ordering my robes in time. And providing I haven’t failed my
degree though, as I’ve only one mark to receive back even if I failed that
course, I think (could be wrong), I’ll still get a degree and graduate. My
life, as I’ve known it for the past three years, in fact my life as I’ve pretty
much known it my entire life, will change. Scary. Terrifying. Exciting.
I have no idea where I’ll be at the end of the summer. As
I’m doing a course for a month right in the middle of the summer, I can’t start
looking for a job yet and as that course could lead to another two year course,
I don’t even know if I’ll need a job in three months or not. And I don’t know
where I’ll be. I could be back at home or come September I might move back to
the city I’ve spent the past three years in. The only thing I am absolutely
sure of is my life will be very different whatever happens. And that’s it. I
know nothing else. I have absolutely no certainty for the future. Just ideas,
options, hopes, dreams and grim determination to do what makes me happy. But no
certainty. Scary. Terrifying. And, every now and then, just a little exciting.
Considering that as children, we are (hopefully) raised in
the comfort of certainty (you will go to school, you will have holidays, you
will go to bed when you’re told..ish, you will have a bed, a drawer in your
classroom, cake on your birthday and, at my secondary school, iced buns for
break on Wednesdays) and even at university, providing you do the work, you
still have this framework, this pattern, this comfort you’ve been raised on and
lived by your entire life of terms and holidays and automatically going from
one year to the next, moving into a life without it is possibly one of the most
daunting transitions you will ever face. No wonder so many graduates choose to
train as teachers. Yes, it’s a very tough job but it still has something of
that comforting pattern.
But at some point you’ve got to let go, however daunting.
Like learning to ride a bike, you have to just ride away and trust that you’ll
carry on going because if you stop you’ll definitely fall over and even if you
do fall, you just have to pick yourself up and get back on and start riding
again. It’s a lesson in trusting yourself, going off and exploring the infinite
abyss. You will fail. Nobody succeeds at everything. But nobody fails at
everything either because every failure at making a step in one direction is
just a step into another.
As I took a gap year (well, if I’m being honest, a gap yah),
some of my friends from school have already graduated. I look at them and no,
they don’t have their dream jobs or a flash lifestyle or lots of money. But
they have a life. And they’re exploring the world, in some way or another. It
took me ages to learn to ride a bike. An embarrassingly long time. Mainly
because when I was at the age when my friends’ parents started to taking the
training wheels off my friends’ bikes, my parents were both too busy, changing
jobs, starting degrees etc. And then a couple of years later, they had time but
I was too embarrassed. I used to look at other children riding bikes and think
I can’t do that, how on earth did they balance? Fact is they just did. And,
when I eventually learnt, I did too. So now I look at my friends who have
graduated already and think if they can do it, I can do it too. Even if we want
completely different things from our lives. We’re still exploring the same
infinite abyss.
So I’m just going to take a deep breath and step into the
world and see what happens. And considering a month, two months ago, I was
threatening to spend next year living under my bed in my parents’ house, this
is, by far, the most overwhelming decision I’ve ever made…even if it’s a
decision I can’t help but make. Still, if Peter Pan or The Doctor appeared and
offered to whisk me away, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t go with them. I
just hope I’d come back, eventually.
And to my friends, from university and from school, who are
about to make the same step into the world, I wish them the best of luck and
thank them for all the good times we’ve had together and the lessons they’ve
taught me that I hope I will carry on the journey. Off we go.
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