I Hate That I “Have to” Do This.

All I’ve really known is school.

My interests outside of school have mainly been writing, sports, and maybe dance. I think a part of me rejected the idea of playing sports in college because it came with the burden of school. I’ve never taken a deep-dive into many of my interests because of the obligation to take care of school. School has always been the “have to” in my life. It was all I knew, and it’s all I’ve known how to pursue, but I’m tired.

In a way, I think I’ve made a career out of school. So much so that naturally, my career (or perhaps job) choice is a college professor.

If school did not exist, who would I be? How would I fill my time? This concept is hard to imagine even now, because all I can imagine doing with my freedom from school, after 20 years of it, is rest. But I’ve reached an age where that’s unacceptable. I often hear adults in my family ask me what I’m tired from, as if carrying the weight of their support and high hopes for me for so long is an easy feat.

I’m not allowed to rest. Not yet. These 20 years of school have not set me up for retirement, rather, I’ve been conditioned to believe that they’ve set me up to start living– to get a job, to make money, to become independent. If I’m being honest, I have no idea who I am or what I really want do once I’m freed from my scholarly obligations.

Sadly enough, after spending so long in school, the thought of testing the waters of the real world to figure out what I want to do with my life repels me, because what the hell has been the point of all this schoolwork if there’s not a tropical resort waiting for me at the end of it?– Waters that I can enjoy…and rest beside? O no sense of certainty, at the very least?

My therapist tells me to think about my “why” when I struggle with motivation to continue, but the truth is, I can’t think of any reason why besides the fact that I’ve been conditioned to think that I have to.

I have to make my family proud.

I have to make the money spent worth it.

I have to take care of myself one day.

At this point, I’ve come entirely too far to stop, anyway. I only wish I would’ve realized somewhere along the way what my “want to” was, before I let the world convince me that I “had to.“

And maybe at one point I had the nerve to dream– to find my “why”– but it was surely short lived as the demands of school ripped away any energy and free-time I could’ve spent figuring myself out. So now, when I think of the things I like to do, like write, or play sports, or dance, I can’t even really distinguish whether these are my genuine interests or tools of escape. As a result, I’ve grown a resentment for school that ironically fuels my quest to save future students from what I myself have become: clueless, but educated.