30. Finish what you've started first.

But, why dad?

I recently had a conversation with my dad over the phone about wanting to do some writing courses and them being terribly expensive. His reply to this was “finish what you’ve started first” - he was referring to my university degree - and I asked him, why? To which he replied “you’ve already spent 3 years doing it, you may as well finish it, just to have it.”

That got me thinking that my dad isn’t the only person who thinks this way, as a matter of fact, most people do. I don’t think I’ve ever really had this way of thinking. My logic is: if you don’t like it, why force yourself to finish it? If it’s making you upset, angry or depressed, why push until the end just to “finish it”? If you’ve changed over the last 3 years and you realise that something else would make you happier, why can’t you change my mind?

In my (humble) opinion, you can change your mind, you can leave it to one side until you figure out what to do with it, you can prioritize your happiness and say, good riddance! But not every one would agree with me, which I’m also used to.

We live in a society where the person who suffers and endures the most, is the strongest and the most capable. I’d like to question that mind set: if you were told that you only have a few more years to live but you’re in the middle of a university degree you hate, would you push through to graduate before dying? I certainly wouldn’t. If you love your degree, it was your life dream and it brings you happiness then of course, we’re talking about different things. But unfortunately, most of us young adults that chose a degree to study at 17 years old had no idea what we really wanted out of life, it was just the “next step”.

I’ve gone from wanting to be an astronaut (until I realised that I have trouble adding up numbers that equal more than ten), to then wanting to be a forensic scientist (nowadays I’d probably die myself from seeing a cadaver). After that I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot but I was told you can’t be one if you wear glasses, which I do. Years later I moved onto things like studying chemistry (which has math), environmental studies - what was I going to do with that?, law because I’m fantastic at debates, or what my family would call “arguing” - it’s not… In the end I chose English language and literature. I thought I’d at least read loads of books and become a pro at writing, neither of those things happened thanks to my degree, which I did 3 years of.

I was planning on finishing my last year and graduating, but then the opportunity of moving to Barcelona cropped up and I decided to flow with it and figure the degree thing along the way. Long story short, I wasn’t able to transfer to BCN university so I guess you could say that it’s on hold right now. I get asked quite often if I don’t regret this decision, if I think I made a mistake, if I have a plan now that I won’t have an A5 piece of paper hanging on my dad’s living room wall, stating that I endured a shitty degree for 4 years of my life. And well, the answer is no.

I understand that this may be difficult for some people to understand and agree with, but the people that love me and want the best for me surely would be happier to know that I no longer cry because of exams. I no longer get migraines and stomach issues because of stress. I have grown no end as a person, woman and creative. I feel the happiest I’ve felt since I was 14 years old. I’ve found my true self again. I am confident. I am healthy and I wake up every morning excited about life and what I’m doing with it. All because I decided that finishing the last year of my degree wasn’t for me at this moment in time, I needed other things from life so I went out and looked for them.

If I’d turned down the opportunity to move, I’d most probably be that same, previous Emily that was really struggling with her inner world. She was a very sad and stressed person that felt alone and lost. She used to cry a lot, feel extremely insecure, her health was terrible, and life in general didn’t mean much to her. She was just plodding along doing what she was “supposed” to do: work to pay bills and study to get a degree. But, I’m not her anymore.

There’s no “one size fits all” here and there isn’t in any aspect of life. You always have to do what’s best for you and only you will know what that is - follow your intuition. If you make a mistake, you can always turn around, go back and carry on where you left of. If following your intuition brings you magical experiences well, there’s not much more to say, is there?

Life is full of experiences waiting for you to grab and try. Life is full of new people to meet who can bring you love, happiness and joy; but you need to be open to them. The whole world is yours to discover and you can actually do anything you want, but sometimes you need to go against the people that tell you to “finish what you’re doing first” to unlock all of these endless possibilities.

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