Navigating life in my twenties did not go as planned. I really thought I was on top of the world. “Cabot to Cambridge” — a very unlikely story. I also thought I knew what it meant to be humbled, to be made small, which is what I prayed for when I began my final year of undergrad. I thought it meant moving somewhere new where I didn’t know anyone. I thought it meant studying under world experts who would make my knowledge seem small. I thought it meant having to work hard for something instead of simply having it handed to me.
Even though these experiences have the potential to produce humility, I only treated them as challenges to overcome. As a result, instead of making me small, they boosted my ego.
I needed to instead make some mistakes, feel really low, and learn from them. I needed to move to another country only to fly home a month later full of disappointment. I needed to see that the top of the world can actually be a really lonely place. I needed to see that independence can very quickly become isolation. I needed to be scared and completely lose control of my emotions (a few times). I needed to see that a full life doesn’t always guarantee a fulfilled life. I needed to see that I really don’t know everything (I know, it shocked me too). I needed to be stopped in my tracks and learn — really learn, for the first time in my life — how to be still (and not secretly stress about my lack of productivity).
Making Plans in My Twenties
A year ago I felt like my life was moving at approximately one hundred miles per hour — just how I liked it. I had recently submitted my application to the master’s program at Cambridge, along with three other grad schools, and was carefully planning my life for the next 2-5 years. I was also training to run a marathon, planning bachelorette activities for my best friend before her wedding, working full-time between semesters, and balancing time with family and friends for the holidays.
I really didn’t expect to get accepted into Cambridge, but three months after applying I was crunching the numbers and calculating how much money I needed to save in order to afford the program for which they had made a conditional offer of acceptance. Graduation came and went, and then I immediately started working. By July I was working three jobs and averaging 90 hours of work per week. Even with three different jobs, every week went by feeling much like the last, and I figured it would only be a matter of time before the repetition broke me. I neglected my family, my friends hardly saw or heard from me, I had no time for a significant other, and the energy I put into each job was slowly being depleted — but Cambridge would be worth it.
That’s what I told myself, at least — or rather tried to tell myself. When I finally reached the month of September, I envisioned the start of a new life in a new country at a new school, but there was very little human left in me to live that life. After a rough introduction to the university and unexpected financial conflicts, I withdrew from my program, deciding it wasn’t worth the fight. It wasn’t worth completely losing myself over.
No Longer Limited
That leads me here. I won’t speak for everyone, but somewhere along the way, many of us started to believe we needed to have our lives figured out by the time we turned eighteen and, if you weren’t staying productive and clearly moving forward, you were falling behind. I certainly didn’t have my life figured out when I graduated high school, but I knew what I wanted and remained optimistic throughout college, always claiming that I would figure out specifics when the time came (despite every set of raised eyebrows and concerns that accompanied such a claim). I’ve always been a planner, but I was also made aware of countless opportunities in every season of life, so I didn’t have a reason to worry.
My decision to pursue my master’s immediately following the attainment of my undergraduate degree was ultimately made in fear and uncertainty. I won’t deny that the thought of continuing my education excited me, but I also won’t deny that it appealed to me largely because it would buy me more time to figure out exactly what I would do with my education. In reality, I knew what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to apply it to life, and it felt strangely greedy for me to deepen my knowledge of something that many others were still in the dark about.
Rebuilding
I don’t think it’s wrong to obtain a higher education beyond undergrad, especially if you have aspirations to share your understanding and cultivate change. In fact, I hope for myself to continue studying for the rest of my life, but I personally don’t know how much I can continue to learn if I don’t live like everything I have already learned truly makes a difference. It’s worth giving up Cambridge for. It’s worth starting over for. It’s worth pursuing the unknown for. It’s even worth losing myself for, because when I let go of these broken and misplaced pieces that frantically came together in a chaotic environment and instead cling to the hope I’ve been introduced to, I can begin rebuilding and focus on new growth. Sometimes plans change and life takes the most unexpected turn, but I believe sometimes that’s exactly what we need.