In life, the only constant is change – which is the biggest oxymoron and can feel like the biggest load of rubbish, until it happens. You sail through school looking forward to secondary years, and then looms the prospect of higher education or finding a new job. This is the first in many huge changes that you will undertake in life, because university is a big change in your education and in your life. New beginnings are always looked upon as something to be cautious about; no one tells you that the nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach is something that is okay to feel; they just say to get through it and you’ll be fine.
Here’s the thing: university comes with changes that impact more than just your education. You move from your parents house into student accommodation and you get your first real taste of life in the adult world, while still straddling your youth. You learn to be independent while your parents are at the end of the phone to top up your phone bill or send cash for a supermarket shop. Independence comes at a price, and every time you do something new in life, you go through that cycle of panic and worry before it all changes again. University changes who you are as a person, while you learn to live with people that you’ve never met, and you tackle learning about subjects in a way you’ve never done before. A new beginning in university becomes your new normal, and then it changes again when you leave university and join the working world.
Now, you’re earning a salary and the lifeline your parents once provided you is slowly weaned away as you earn your own income and pay your own rent on a new place. The years you spent at university change the way that you debate, think and even feel about certain topics. You make the friends that you forge for the rest of your life, and you learn to be a new person for the workplace. Your workplace is a new beginning, and you start right at the bottom again to learn another set of ropes and behaviours that are acceptable in a new environment. This new beginning bleeds into a new normal. Until it all changes again to accommodate a promotion, or a relocation, or an entire change of career because what you hoped for didn’t turn out the way that you thought it would.
Life is full of changes, and it’s how you play out those changes that defines the way that you live. While you’re growing as a person and learning to be independent, you change your thinking and you attitude and this changes your actions and the way that you treat people. Believe it or not, it all starts with the changes that happen to you through school and applying for university. These are the constant changes that will baffle you and grow you as a person – don’t be afraid of change, for change means something amazing is coming.
Disclaimer: this is a collaborative post.
