Friends my junior are fretting over exams now. Each one’s wondering if they will pass their papers for each respective subject. It’s the same issues, too much scope with too little time to cover it. Then there’s the exam day itself when you come out either knowing you’ve made it ashore or you’ve sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Heh, I’ve never really had an issue with passing exams, although no matter how hard I tried I could never score fantastic marks for them.

Looking back now, if I had known back then what I knew now (well, isn’t that always the case), I might have done things a little differently. These days I feel that there is a positive side towards an aggresive stance in seeking things out. My personal experiences over the last few months have taught me to take more proactive measures in doing stuff. Everything’s the same, it’s daunting when you first try it and gets frustrating because you’re never sure if you’re doing it the right way. After a while, everything seems to flow more with your own actions and you start to get the hang of things. On the other hand, if you were to change things about yourself in the past, you’d not be the person that you are today.

I’ve always wanted to define my own style but sometimes feel like I’m falling flat when I don’t know what the outcome is or when the outcome is totally something different from my expectations. Sometimes, it’s easier to just follow the trodden path that has been taken by so many. You feel more secure knowing that these routes will somehow lead you to some kind of personal satisfaction. That kind of thinking has prevailed throughout my entire life, so while I don’t make as many mistakes in life, I don’t really gain much experience outside what I’m comfortable with, hence there is a lack of confidence in things I’ve never done before.

I’ve seen people who take everything head on, regardless of whether they can do it or not. There’s never the negative attitude of saying ,”It’s too hard, I can’t do it” to begin with. That’s probably the one thing that a lot of people never do about themselves, assessing what their own strenghts and weaknesses are and modifying their own behaviour to adapt to it. It is a difficult process, changing habits and behaviours that you’ve grown used to. Somehow, forging new synaptic pathways in your brains for new experiences causes quite some discomfort in a lot of people. Reasoning and logic can’t oust habit and stubborness out the door. It is the classic case of fearing the unknown, as a lot of people would rather avoid the detrimental effects of something than weighing in the possible good that can come out of it.

* * *

I’ve been feeling depressed, really because I have no idea what I’m doing in life now. There is this pressure to get things done, for results. Somehow, life has revolved around moving onto the next stage in life. Since I was young, I’ve been motivated to do well in my studies. I’ve done this without questioning throughout my entire youth, up until high school. When you are 15 or 16, you get to the age of being impressionable. I was wanting more in life than just good grades that did not seem to bring anything tangible to life (well, again as I said, looking back now, knowing what I know now, I’d take a different attitude to that). I think there was probably a need for a mentor figure, but without one, the only thing you have as a benchmark as to whether you’re doing things ‘normally’ would be your peers and friends. While I’ve had good training towards self motivation in studying, it was only to get the results that would allow you to keep up with the rest. It’s been hammered into our minds that you need good results to get a good job as a professional.

Being a teenager, you tend to be stubborn and doing things the opposite way just to prove a point. I never rebelled much, I don’t know why, nor do I remember. I just did what I was told to do. Heh, now that I’ve graduated, there’s no one to tell me what to do anymore. In university, it was to concentrate on your studies, full stop. Had I been any wiser, I’d have spent more effort improving my chances of employment back then. Then there’s always the case of “I’ll worry about it when I have to.” That’s true, but you should at least give some consideration into improving your chances later on while you still have the opportunities at the given time frame. Then again, I wasn’t bright enough to give myself that kind of advice to begin with.

Back to the present. Everyone I know my age (as a benchmark) is happily (or at least grumblingly so) employed and at least draw a decent income. If not, they’re still studying some uber long course (like medicine or architecture) which would at least guarantee you something when you come out. I’ve graduated for nearly a year now, and if I don’t find a job soon, my degree would mean squat in Melbourne as prospective employers will question what you’ve been doing for the past 12 months. The journey now is like travelling uphill, and you have no idea what’s on the other side of the mountain, whether it’s a town where you can finally have shelter and food in, or more empty plains for you to traverse. Everyone is telling me that my opportunities will come, and that I should keep my spirits up. To me, it feels like a futile attempt waiting for something that might never happen, I’m really grasping at ether at the moment. Some have said for me to go home, where plenty of opportunities await. Either option sorts of determines the rest of your life, and with the lengthy post above, is something that yields an unknown to me. There are pros and cons to either solution, but the cons are worrisome. Perhaps I am afraid of what is to come, not knowing if I can handle it.