Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

(warning long post alert) 

Inspired by the above quote, it got me thinking. In this thoroughly modern age it has become increasingly difficult to escape the relentless probing questions that your parents, grandparents, teachers, dentists and random shopkeepers are asking you about your life and your life choices. Whether it's the lady in the Post Office who has known you since you were a baby asking when you're off to university, or your grandma asking why you aren't married yet, it seems that someone out there is ready to cast judgement on what you are doing. It's an inescapable reality that I've found myself confronting on a regular basis and the pressure of which can become quite overwhelming. 

I first experienced this and fully understood the pressure and weight of these kinds of questions when I was 9/10 years old and faced with the enormous decision of which high school I wanted to attend. There was a lot available from comprehensive to private and I was in the catchment area for pretty much all of them. All I really knew was that I liked the idea of going to a girls grammar/private school because I thought that was where the most successful girls would be... and they had nice uniforms...and I was quite obsessed with being Hermione Granger...and they often had swimming pools.  

The main issues here were a) I wasn't an A grade student b) I wasn't stinking rich c) I wasn't Hermione Granger (that part burnt the most). The other sad thing about all of this was that at the tender age of 9 years old, I was already completely aware of and concerned about being generically 'successful'. I applied to a mixture of schools (including comprehensives) but it still didn't stop me feeling absolutely gut wrenchingly awful when I didn't pass the exams for the 'posher' schools and I had to kiss goodbye to the dream of being 'someone important'...AT 11 YEARS OLD. I wasn't legally old enough to vote, drive or drink or allowed to go to shopping by myself - I was a minor. Yet despite this, I had garnered enough information from Junior school teachers, PTA mums, and fellow classmates, that to be more successful I needed to be at the top of the class and go to a grammar school. I was pretty much forced to start thinking about what I wanted to do as an adult, when I hadn't even hit puberty and still watched cartoons. 

My mum believed that as long as I was happy I'd 'do well' and in the end she was right. I got 12 GCSE's A*-B and that was all from a bog standard London comprehensive -sans excessive pressure. Unfortunately for me though, the judgement didn't end there and in came the next round of "lets give our opinion even though you didn't ask for it" this time from my teachers: 

What are you going to do at Sixth Form? 

Are you going to College? 

Are you doing A Levels? 

Ohhh, you are thinking of doing a BTEC wouldn't it be better to do A Levels? Etc etc etc. 

I knew that my strengths at the time were in creative or technological fields and armed with that decision I had to decide: Which industry will see me become more 'successful'? Which has better career prospects? What courses would get me into a good university? Do they do creative courses at Oxford? (lol, they don't). If you're looking for a visual representation of my brain at this point, just think of a pressure cooker boiling up and waiting to explode with confusion. My headmaster drilled into us the importance of being academic and even went as far as to show us a pie chart of how university students earn more than school leavers. There was really no room for deviation in his eyes and this stressed me out. I didn't at this point want to be a lawyer and even though I was a hard working student, I really didn't want to lose my creative side. 

I was really nifty with computers but I loved videography and music. Neighbours would jump on this topic to add their 2 cents "ohh you don't want to do media, there is a shed load of kids with media degrees, do maths or a science"... "Haha I want fries with that".  I knew for a fact that choosing maths or science, when I didn't get A* at GCSE, combined with a hugely differing standard of teachers, was probably a recipe for disaster. So I did a combination of creative, academic and technological A Levels. 

You can see where i'm going next with this so i'll cut it down to: Eat Sleep Worry About University Choices Repeat. 

It only occurred to me recently that so many of my decisions were being swayed by people who either didn't know me well enough to comment, or only thought success could be judged on your yearly salary and job title. I was 'losing' myself trying to keep people happy that were going to judge me regardless, and to try and compete with others around me who had a totally different skill set to me. Of course being an Investment Banker would get me some majorly decent P's and I could go for regular cheeky Nandos with the Banker ladz, but that wasn't what I wanted back then.  

So here I am now, older and wiser? I'm not sure. All I do know is that I am no longer lost despite the fact that i'm definitely wandering. 2015 has seen my life become a KFC combo box meal of tits up, just keep swimming and ahh finally you are back on track.  The difference is, this year i've learnt that I CAN cope with this tumultuous question mark on my life by force field rejecting some of that external pressure.  Chalk it up to experience, have a little cry or laugh it off, these experience are all here to teach something and i've certainly learned a lot. 

So, in a bid to triumph through adversity, i've taught myself how to de-stress, to accept opinions but also to go with my gut even if it doesn't seem right to everyone else.  In the last year i've learnt how to be resilient to assholes and resourceful with money. In the last few months in particular I've developed a much clearer understanding of what I want to do and surprise surprise, I didn't even need to go to university to do it. I still have the burning desire to be successful but i'm not going to beat myself up if I don't get onto that path instantly like I would've done as a misguided and 'lost' teenager.  Good things take time and sometimes a whole lot of wandering and mistakes first. 

Not all those who wander are lost. Maybe they've already found themselves.