Life is a journey, they say. I understand why people say it, but it doesn’t make me any less irritated by those words. What makes it even worse is that I myself say it occasionally.
These days I feel completely lost. I don’t have any real skills, I haven’t accomplished anything of importance (or even accomplished something of no importance at all) and I have absolutely no idea what I should do in the future.
If life could actually be a real journey, if I had just one companion to travel the world with, then I would be completely satisfied with life even if I didn’t accomplish anything at all.
Travelling, exploring new places and cultures, learning new languages, tasting all kinds of food and drink, to hike through mountains and relax in the sun with a great book or sit by the fireplace a cold and snowy night – to me such a life sounds magical. If it was possible to share such a life with just one other person, someone to keep me sane I think and share all of those experiences with, then I think I should never ask for anything else ever again. Is anyone that lucky? Well, I doubt I could ever be that lucky.
Life is an endless struggle of paying student loans, trying to earn enough money every month so that I can still live even after I paid my monthly expenses, and you know what? I’ll be paying off my student loans for the next 15 years of my life – unless a miracle happens… And I am pretty sure I am not that lucky. Luck was never my really on my side.
Luck is stupid anyways. I always thought (and often told others) that I would rather be lucky than talented. I probably only said that because I had little talent for anything and luck, well, you don’t have to be lucky all the time to be lucky once in a while. Even if luck had nor yet been on my side, I could still hope for it. Talent, however, would have been obvious by now, right?
Well, here I am. Almost 34 years old and I am neither talented nor lucky. My greatest accomplishment in life is accumulating student loans, which I have no clue how to pay, because I was not able to get a job for 4 years after graduating.
I decided to start over, forge a new path in life, and started culinary school in January. It’s been 5 months and my shoulder has gotten worse again and odds are I will have to quit – the teachers already made it clear they don’t think I can do it, because even if I get through the rehabilitation, I would most likely only be able to work as a chef for a limited number of years because of the kind of injury I have.
One of my teachers already told everyone I quit in spite of the fact that I am only on sick leave right now. I feel less motivated because of that, since I was hoping to return – now, I am not sure.
I honestly don’t know what to do next. I need to earn money because of my monthly living expenses, of course, but more than anything because my student loans need to be paid. If I don’t pay on time, they might raise the interest rate quite a lot and then I’ll never be able to pay it back.
I can honestly say that even though going to university is something I appreciate being able to do, I don’t think it was worth the debt I have now. If I had been able to get proper work after graduating, sure, it probably would have been fine. I wasn’t able to and now, if I quit culinary school with a shoulder injury, I have no idea how to get work.
A few months ago, I was talking about chasing new dreams and creating a better future – now I’m just worried about whether or not I have any future at all.
Usually, when we try to find a new path in life, we at least have options and choices, but now, I don’t even feel certain I have choices or if I do, I am not sure I’ll be able to figure out what those choices are.
Actually, am I wrong about this? Maybe it just feels like either we have too many choices or none at all? While I was unemployed, I felt like I had no choices and simple struggled to survive every day. I guess, I could have tried to create a new life for myself back then too, but I was just too tired to even think about it.
Yes, that’s probably more what it’s really like. When we are trying to create a new life for ourselves the path is almost never really entirely clear – if it was, wouldn’t we already be living that new life? I feel somewhat comforted by the idea. It’s supposed to be frightening and confusing because it’s all new and uncertain. Right? If I wasn’t scared at all, then would it even matter to me? The fear I feel right this moment, as many have said before me, is proof that something is important to me.
The desire to find somewhere to belong, to feel safe and happy, is something we all crave – neurotypical or atypical alike, right? However, I am not sure I find that comforting at all. If we all crave it, doesn’t that mean that it is really difficult to find?
I don’t want to go back to being unemployed and struggling again, but I guess I might have to, at least for a little while. Hopefully, if my shoulder doesn’t get better soon, I will find a way to make everything work out anyway. If I have to quit school, I will have to take some time to figure out what to do next. Luckily, I live in a country that not only has free health care, but will also allow me to do just that. If not, I would honestly be terrified by now.
I guess, what I really want to say is that it is perfectly okay not to know what to do or what we want. It’s not really okay to be completely paralysed by this or refuse to at least try to find a solution – but it is definitely an understandable reaction.
Not knowing isn’t the end, it can be a beginning if we want it to be. What we don’t know doesn’t really matter, what matters is accepting that we don’t know and as long as there is a healthy and not harmful (both to yourself and others) way to learn more about it, well, then it’s a beginning. Not knowing can be wonderful beginning of anything from self-discovery to compassion, to learning about new languages or cultures or learning a new skill. It can even be a beginning of a great romance, because we really all mostly start out falling in love with someone we don’t know an awful lot about.
I never wanted to be one of those people who behave like not knowing is the end of something, but I have been, once in a while and out of fear. I would give up on something because I was too afraid of failures, or sometimes, success. I blamed not knowing enough rather than fear.
It’s like how I always wanted to play piano properly, like my grandmother, but never put in the effort knowing I would never be as great as she was. She was brilliant and I was… well, I am mediocre at best. Not with the piano, I can’t play even though I took classes as a child and even had grandmother teach me as well. I could play when I was younger, but all of those skills are gone now.
No, I always felt that in life I am mediocre at best – so why try to learn more when I could never be great? I didn’t realise learning to play piano is different from playing piano – wanting to play doesn’t mean wanting to learn and wanting to learn means I don’t know anything at first. Time and effort changes that. In time, if we practice, we can learn to play and we should do that for the joy of learning to play.
Forging a new path is like learning a new skill – we know nothing at first and then we try to learn more about ourselves and life, we make mistakes and re-adjust. It’s all confusing and scary, whether we are creating a new life or learning a new skill and over time, we might realise it’s not really for us anyways and try and find something else instead.
Sometimes, an injury takes us away from something we want – something we feel a need to pursue – and if that happens, all we can do is accept and try to figure things out little by little.
Most people won’t try to play Claire de lune without first learning the basics of playing the piano, even though I am sure some are actually able to. Have you ever seen anyone who’s never seen a piano, or heard the sound of one, sit down and Claire de lune just springs from their fingertips without any practice at all? I doubt it. I am definitely not one of those people. I need to figure things out through trial and error, starting with nothing and working my way towards something.
Sure, right now it would be pretty great if I knew what that something might be, but I don’t. It’s okay because it is. I don’t know why, but maybe you’ll understand what I mean from reading this oddly confusing post about being lost and searching for a way out.
It’s about finding your own path instead of searching for the right path.
