I can’t tell you how many journal entries I’ve started with some variation of, “I feel weird. I know I always say that, and so it would seem that I never feel normal, but it’s different this time.” And it is different this time. Just like it is every time.
Even though I feel like a lazy bum most of the time, I guess if I step back and look at my life, it appears that I am actually quite motivated. I’m going somewhere. I’m accomplishing things. And though I’m constantly falling short of my stupidly high standards, making it really difficult for me to say these following words, I do work hard.
My life has always revolved around school. When I was younger, it was just because that’s where I spent all of my time. But now it’s part of my identity. The direction my life has had has always been related to school. From Elementary School to Middle School to High School to College to a Master’s Program and now to the PhD. Even if I had a lot of doubt about what I wanted to do, the next step seemed logical.
I guess the way I feel right now is that I’ve always done what I had to do to get to the next step, and now I’m on the final step and feeling a little lost. I don’t think lost is even the right word. Actually, maybe I feel found and that’s what’s confusing. I made it. I’m doing it. I feel more sure than ever that this is where I want to be. In a sense, I feel like I have arrived and now I don’t know what to do with myself.
Logically, though, I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I have a lot more work to do. Two years of course work. Exams. A Dissertation. And then the impossible: getting a professorship. It’s going to be another 4 or 5 years.
It’s easy to put life off, thinking “I just have to get through this and then I’ll settle down.” As if settling is really living anyway. That’s something I have always done artificially, not realizing I was living my life all along. But now I can see the finish line on the more than 20 year process of getting my formal education and, I don’t know, it’s messing with my mind.
I guess this is life with a focus not on what’s to come, but what currently is. Who knew it would feel so different.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
ha, your related post “I’m Feeling Weird” starts the exact same way as this one.
..and my life will revolve around school for the rest of my life too.
I feel the same way right now. I’m close to graduation and actually having to take the next step in finding a job. All my life I’ve been in school and now I’m almost done. Weird is about the only way to describe it.
I also set ridiculously high standards for myself. All that leads me to is a sense of failure. Be patient with yourself :)
I feel this way A LOT too. I just remind myself that life is a journey and not a destination!!
I often think I feel motivated, and then I look at my life and I see how utterly lazy I am and how I’ve pretty much done nothing. I’m always thinking, “once *insert something* happens, my life will really begin”. But all the while I forget that life already is, and I’m wasting it.
I often get teased by family and close friends for having some sort of (what they perceive as) a “Master To-Do” list by which I define my life, priorities and always “something else to do.” I end up missing a lot of the now. It’s a daily struggle to just sit back and enjoy what is…
I think I used to feel that way. I tend to feel that way when an ending is coming (the end of school, the end of a job, etc). But remember, it always works itself out!
“I just have to get through this and then I’ll settle down.”
That is so my promise to myself. Actually, it has been my promise more than once. I’m working on not believing it. Baby steps; baby steps.
i know exactly what you mean. both about starting posts that way (why do our minds go there first?), and about getting to the finish line. all i can say is that i’m learning that there’s always something else out there. you never really reach “the end.” it’s both frustrating and comforting.
I try not to set my standards too high. Luckily, I know what I’m capable of, so I’m able to set my standards just a notch higher than that.
You’re so close to the end! It’s understandable that you’re lost. I’ll be in school for another six years, probably (I have yet to obtain my Associate’s Degree), so I have a ways to go. I love reading about how far you’ve come, though, because it reminds me that I can get there, too.
I totally get how you feel because it’s how I felt as college came to an end. I didn’t know exactly what the next step would be. I knew what I wanted, a job, but I wasn’t sure if it’d happen. So very normal to feel that way though, and you’d be odd if you didn’t.