YOU ARE AN UNDISCOVERED MYSTERY-- by Christina Tara

People love having as many choices as possible. We love the sense of the unknown and the intoxication of vast possibilities. For this reason, we may hesitate to choose one door, as it can feel like doing so closes a bunch of other ones. Getting a Masters in Accounting and going into business likely means you won’t be an orthopedic surgeon; we want to hold to the belief we could do either one, yet we choose neither. I always told myself that “choosing something made me feel like I was closing out on everything else”. Picking a single road to start traveling down can feel boring and constraining – as well as a lot more work. Once you choose a path to take, that decision comes with necessary next steps and responsibilities.

We have a lot of our youth who don’t explore further education and have that mentality of telling themselves that it’s much easier to sit on the curb and watch the world go by than to hustle and make something of themselves. We often say we don’t want to settle for an “ordinary” life. We want our lives to be different than our parents’. They can feel very convicted about this, but if you ask them what having an extraordinary life means, they’re usually not sure. They’re likely to say something about not wanting a regular 9-5 office job and wanting to do something they love, but even here they’re vague on what this might actually look like. They know what they don’t want, but aren’t sure of what they do. They figure they will simply know it when they see it, and so keep their options open in the hope that the path to an “extraordinary” life will somehow reveal itself.

You don’t always know what you want to be and you shouldn’t beat yourself over it. Remember that life itself is a journey. Those who are fortunate enough to already have a goal on where they are directed are the ones I admire. However, for the majority of us...how is it possible that you know exactly what to do with your life, with the knowledge you acquired from high school and the little work experience we take on during secondary education? I guess we don’t. We have images in our mind on where we want to be in the distant future but we never truly know what the first step should be after leaving high school. It has been advocated for centuries that uni should be the next step. We all know that trying to earn a place in any given university is a challenge in itself. But even then we still question our options...What if I choose one of the possibilities I’ve been endlessly examining and then I don’t like it? What if I get stuck doing something “ordinary” – something that doesn’t fit my idea of what my life is supposed to be like or what I’m really meant to do?

I didn’t get into my chosen course nor did I earn the marks for Wollongong University (my desired institution after leaving high school). So the following year I did a business marketing course and even I struggled with that. I was so use to the life of returning home, eating then watching television, going out and staying up late on social networking sites. This became my ritual for the first couple of months. I only managed to scrape through the pass mark. Watching my friends graduate was an eye opener for me. I decided it was time I pull my socks up and get my act together. As a young adult you wanna be treated like a grown up but still have family there to do things for you. My friends and family are no longer the people I lean on. I knew that in order to make something of myself I needed to get out of my comfort zone and quit making excuses...and so I did. As dull as it may sound...making that decision became the birth of me. I started setting small goals for myself…”one by one” I kept saying. I decided to tackle my worst 2 units at the time...business law and accounting. If I could at least earn a distinction mark for this I promised I would continue on with this habit for all my other subjects. I put in the hard yards...I would return home and lock myself in the garage with my books and made sure there were no devices, not even internet around me. I’d stay in there till I could answer every question I thought was difficult. I’d tell everyone to leave me alone and that if they wanted to talk to me they’d have to wait till Christmas. It went on to the point where I would look forward to these two exams. Wanna guess what mark I got for accounting and business law? Distinction and High Distinction. I remember crying when I got home that night...not because of my academic achievement, my grades meant so much more than just a job well done, it serves as a reminder of how far I have grown since leaving high school. This habit continued till I graduated.

I had a part time internship with a events company specializing in business and major sports events and also worked part time in a restaurant after graduating. I soon came to discover that I still wanted to do more studying. So I applied to UWS and got accepted to study business and commerce with a major in international operations and supply chain management. However I immediately discovered after my first semester that it really wasn’t something I enjoyed. I had a lack of motivation and lost hope for my business career. I dove into the course with no real image of where I wanted to be in the near future.

To make matters worse I didn’t wanna be a disappointment to my family by telling them that I wanted to drop out, not knowing what I would do after I would leave uni. I soon experienced sleepless nights thinking hard of where I would direct myself next and how I would stand up in front of my mother and explain what I was about to do with myself. I only found comfort in one person at the time...my boyfriend. Lord knows even I was scared to tell him and feared rejection. But he has been my backbone and the most loving and caring person who has held me up and supported me through every decision I’ve made this far.

I feared most the image my mother would have for me “Im a failure” I thought she would say. I learnt that the longer you leave it, the harder you make things for yourself. So I decided to do the coward thing and drop out, then tell my mum later. To my surprise when I told her, she was ok with it “You didn’t seem motivated like you were with your last course” was her response (and one I’ll never forget).

I would return home from work and do research into different courses and universities. Unbelievably I jumped out of my business field (an area I thought for so long I would end up in) and dived into Nursing. I thought to myself that the only way I succeeded before was by getting out of my comfort zone, tackling something different...and so I did.

My first preference for uni was University of Sydney, I knew I wouldn’t be accepted into such a reputable uni but thought “oh well, better to try then say I never did”. My second and third choices were UTS and ACU. When the acceptance letter came through I was standing next to my brother in the kitchen and only he can tell you the amount of jumping, screaming and hugging I did that thunderous, rainy night. I literally cried when the letter read “Congratulations! You have received an offer for bachelor of nursing (advanced studies) at the University of Sydney”. I was glad to have studied biology in high school, it helped me tremendously in first semester. Subjects like bio-science pushed me to my limits but I was determined this time round to keep my distinction average.

What it all comes down to is that not knowing what to do straight after high school maybe isn’t such a bad idea. But taking a step forward to getting closer to that image in your mind is significantly indispensable. While deciding to pursue one path does close down other routes, at least for a time, it also opens up new ones that would never have been available if you remained at your initial starting point.

Keep setting goals for yourself no matter how small. I have developed my next goal after graduating from nursing school, to study cardiac nursing while working in a hospital. The problem for our generation is we all want to be a Zuckerberg...an overnight sensation in any given field and then feel let down when that doesn’t happen (even though, actually, you may be doing very well so far).

The lesson I have learnt is that I grew to accept my weakness at an early stage but I took this as motivation to better myself. I know what its like to be at the bottom and feel clueless and the only way you can make it is to not lose hope, always have that constant motivation. I used my resources and time wisely. I was eager to learn new skills and unlock a wealth of knowledge. When the marks came in I began to feel proud of my success and used that feeling of accomplishment to push myself further. Employing all the strategies I had learned over the years, I focused on compensating for my weaknesses by capitalizing on my strengths. I stayed back in the library after classes till closing time and completed my assignments well before its due date. It is hard to believe that my peers are now coming to me for help and look to me for motivation. While I had some fears of entering nursing school without all the knowledge, I knew the work ethic I had developed would continue to grow and get stronger as I became more confident in my abilities. After overcoming my greatest challenge, I now know that I can accomplish any task, no matter how great. The proof? It’s in my grades.