So you think you’ve got a plan?

Jenna Kirk

Name:Jenna Kirk
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Joined: Jan 2012
Occupation: applying to study Geogrpahy and English
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It can’t be denied that student life can be quite taxing, especially now that the media consensus on the future seems to run along the lines of, “there will never be any relative prosperity, ever again.” Of course, occasionally there are feature articles on successful youths. These pieces always seem to involve lots of bright colours and the subject hard at work in their chosen profession, smiling in a way that you usually don’t when you’re hard at work. Record exam results help our mood about as much as the school pupils on the front page of the paper on results day; They mildly annoy everyone because they’re smart, and they’re definitely not ugly – those girls clearly straighten their hair with advanced appliances such as real irons and blacksmith hammers and you just know that those boys enjoy a double life earning good money strolling about with their shirts off outside Hollister.

Photo by Brett Jordan

However, despite this media pressure, are we really helping ourselves with our vitally indispensible high achievements and unidirectional life goals? That sounds a bit complicated. In essence, perhaps we should develop the skill of flexibility, for the simple reason that life doesn’t always go to plan.

For instance, once upon a time, I was absolutely, positively going to become a geography teacher. Ironically, apart from perhaps tarantula handling, teaching is also the job least suited to me. I possess two anger settings, Mildly Irritated and Violent. So, when I went to help out at a local drama class, I spent most of my time mildly irritated, and then I “moved a child with my foot.” Clearly, teaching was never going to happen, but it took me roughly four years of denial to come to the conclusion that perhaps I’d better try something else.

Unfortunately, I’d still not quite grasped the concept of flexibility. Next, I bulldozed my way into university, ready for exactly five years of fun, independence and eventually a PhD in some as yet unknown geological phenomenon. Predictably, this didn’t happen either. Seemingly everyone was prepared for a lot more fun than me, so I spent most of my time hiding from their drunken exploits. My plan to encounter my future geologically-minded husband with whom I would bear several incredibly talented offspring was also scuppered as all I could seem to attract was some well-meaning but ultimately creepy chap in a burgundy silk dressing gown and tartan slippers, who unconvincingly chatted me up about fish.

Although my embarrassingly unrealistic life plans were clearly not viable, the problem was that I genuinely believed them, and when they didn’t work out, I processed this as my own invariable and constant failure. Then I developed an anxiety disorder and had to drop out of university on medical grounds, and even then I saw my illness as not particularly impressive because many suffer from its effects. Although an extreme example, this pattern of thought is increasingly common among young people. It is a deep channel in one’s mind, through which the familiar thought process of failure, or fear of failure, flows and at times, floods. It seems to be chronically imprinted in the minds of our generation. A charmingly, self-deprecating tone has distorted into accepted self-insult and where any deviation from the path that our pedantic minds have set us is recognised as a catastrophic fall from grace.

A more reliable plan. Photo by Tom Ray

Now, I have to sit through an “ill gap year,” and to be honest, I wouldn’t recommend it. I have a part time job making soup and washing dishes. The hot water has a way of opening the pores in my skin, and the soup has a way of getting into those pores, so that my bodily aroma is less DKNY “Be Delicious” and more “This Soup is Delicious! Honest!” When I return to a different university next year, I’ll probably be known as “Weird Soup Girl” but at least I’ll arrive with an idea of my limits, as well as my potential. The anxiety and the thoughts associated with it are undeniably still there though, and will no doubt be ongoing for a while yet. It’s brilliant to have goals and to achieve them, but sometimes it’s better to stumble upon a few things in life, instead of constantly purposely striding towards them. Instead of going with the flow, we should occasionally fight against the current, and divert our ambitions to somewhere where the water’s a little less rough.