It's not an easy thing to know what you want to do with your life.
There's the common things like...you want to travel the world, a pretty house, lots of friends, a close knit family, a nice car, a gazillion dollars and a dog called Kevin. But what about what you actually want to "do"? Unless your Great Aunt Prudence leaves you a trust fund in her will, you'll need to go out yourself and earn the money to obtain those things that you want.
So, you need a job. Preferably something that you at least get some kind of satisfaction from to make the daily grind more bearable. Some people get lucky and they know exactly what they want to do with themselves from a young age, and many others at least have it figured out by high school.
I was not one of those people. Well I was until I told my art teacher I wanted to study Art at Uni and he laughed...and laughed...and laughed some more.... :-/
I'm an indecisive person by nature - I find it hard to make even fairly simple choices on a daily basis. Harder choices = so much more internal struggle, trying to make sure that the decision I make is the "right" decision. Whether or not it was due to my indecisiveness, I found the whole planning out my entire life process extremely stressful, and tried not to think about it very much. At all.
People always say to do what makes you happy - study something that you love, and I can for sure see the merits of following that advice, so I did, though not straight away.
I sat my TEE exams and received my score, but didn't apply for places at any Universities. My parents and I had discussed it and they said I was too young to go straight to Uni after school, or even after a gap year like many of my friends and classmates. At the time I felt like I was being left behind, but I know now that they were right. At the end of my graduating year I was only just 16 years old (having skipped a grade years ago), and was in no way prepared for what post-school education would be like - mentally, emotionally or maturity wise. So, at the start of my first year out of school, I was offered a job with a lovely lady who owned the Christian cafe/bookshop in our town, and I was there for about 20 months. By the time I left for another job, my parents had taken over the bookshop and were in the process of trying to sell it.
I had applied, interviewed for, and received a traineeship in Events Management with a local takeaway/catering business and I was stoked. I thought to myself, "I can totally do this, this is what I'm going to 'do'." And I did. For the 5 months I was there, I was the 2IC of the admin side of things, I ran the takeaway store, I helped people plan their events, set up, pack down, waitressing. Everything. But then the news came. They were closing up shop.
I'd been out of school for just over two years, and I still didn't feel any closer to figuring out what I was meant to be doing with my life. My best friend had packed up and moved away to Perth to study something horrendously smart, and I was stuck. Sure, I had a piece of paper saying I had a qualification (Cert IV in Hospitality), but I was at a loss.
I began the search for a new job, and after a while, I was offered a cafe managers position in one of the local shopping centre's. That place opened my eyes up to what dealing with other people in the big, wide world can actually be like - and it wasn't very nice. I was only there for 5 months before I handed in my notice. It was the shortest amount of time I'd ever been at a job and it was the first time I'd ever resigned. Both times previously that I'd ended up jobless were due to the closure of the business. I drove home after my last shift at that cafe, and I felt so relieved to be done with the constant stress and negativity that had been sitting on me for the last five months - I still didn't know what I was going to do, but I didn't mind. I knew that the hospitality industry had been ruined for me now, but that was okay too. Hospitality is one of those things that you have to absolutely, positively, without a doubt need to love what you do with all of you, otherwise you end up all angry and "I hate my job" like so many others.
It must have been about mid to late January and I hadn't been out of my job very long when mum mentioned to me that now I had left a job I really didn't like, and I had no new one lined up, maybe now would be a good time to explore Uni options. I always knew I had wanted to get there eventually, but I still didn't know 'exactly' what I wanted to study. Mum and Dad said they'd support me financially while I was studying externally so I didn't have to get a job or move away, which was really great of them. Even so, I still needed to decide what I wanted to study. I was stuck between cyber forensics so I could be like the tech guys in CSI and NCIS, or making video games so I could get my dream job at EA and have my name in the credits of The Sims 75.
Dad said that I should do something involving children, but I didn't want to. In my mind "something with children" translated to childcare/daycare, and I knew for certain that I didn't want to go down that avenue, so I ignored him - despite the multiple times that he told me that he saw that I was gifted with children (whether or not because I kind of just learned how to be good with kids because of all my siblings or maybe just because that's the gift God had given me). It was a typical "You don't know me, let me make my own choices" type deal.
I enrolled in a Cyber Security degree which turned out to be not what I thought it was, I discovered after some digging during the year - so after the first year I transferred into Games Programming. They were pretty closely related disciplines, and I was lucky to not have to start from scratch as all the first year units were the same in both degrees. I didn't foresee any problems. I had really enjoyed my first year. I loved learning how to count in hex and octal and binary and learning all the maths that goes with it all. I learned basic Java coding and I learned how to be the middleman between a client and a web developer (that wasn't as exciting, but it was interesting seeing things from that perspective). I learned a lot of things and I was thoroughly excited for my second year so that I could start creating things. In my mind, doors were opening left, right and centre and the entire world opened up to me.
The second year didn't prove as easy. First semester went pretty okay. Second semester is when things got rocky. Things weren't coming to me as easily any more. It wasn't the same maths and programming jargon that I had soaked up in first year, and I started freaking out. I had four units in that second semester and all four units were full of theory. Mass amounts of text that I needed to be able to remember in exams and I just couldn't do it. I was struggling to understand why I even needed to know these things, and how it was relevant, and why couldn't it all just be hands on? Of course, it wasn't my place to question, so I tried to commit as much as I could to memory and headed off to my exams. They didn't go so well, but that was alright. Surely not every single person to have ever gone to university had passed every single unit the first time? Surely someone, somewhere along the way had failed? So I picked myself up and I tried again...and I didn't fare much better. Something needed to be done. With the way things were going, I was going to end up with a huge HECS debt and no degree.
I needed to do some soul searching. Something I've never been very good at.
I enjoy painting, but I'm not very good at it - I wouldn't pursue it as a profession. I enjoy singing, but I'm also not very good at that either, and as much as I daydream about becoming the next Australian Idol or X-Factor sensation - it's not going to happen, it's not realistic. In the plan I had made for myself, making games was meant to be my reality, but it was clear that the direction I was trying to head in wasn't bearing fruit.
Ultimately, what made my final decision for me was the thought that I wanted to do something that I knew I could succeed in. Realising that I had failed at what I had planned to spend my life doing was a huge blow, and I just wanted to be able to 'do' something. So I grasped for the one thing that I had been told I was good at.
Kids.
Two years previous I had ignored my dad's advice. Probably because enrolling in uni was a huge step towards the rest of my life and I didn't want to look back down the track and regret that I'd let my dad talk me into doing something that I was sure I didn't want to do. And also because for some obscure reason my brain limited "working with children" to daycare and I didn't want to spend my days changing the pants of kids who weren't mine (major, major props to those who do work in daycare. You are high up on my list of role models.)
Those two years gave me the time to grow up a tiny bit more so that when my plans went south, I could look at myself and say "Hey, maybe you should take an actual look at what you've been told you're good at, what you might be "gifted" at. To varying degrees, I've taught my siblings how to count and say the alphabet. I've taught them colours and body parts and how to climb up ladders and then slide down the slide. My mum frequently calls me the baby whisperer (though sometimes I don't always live up to the name. You win some, you lose some), and I will admit to enjoying watching Sesame Street. Dad told me a few years ago something along the lines of "I can wholly rely on you to look after our children properly, but I can't rely on you to turn the oven off when something is burning" (Sorry mum).
I was resistant to what I now believe to be my calling, because I wanted to forge my own path. And God would have blessed me in forging my own path, but it wouldn't have been the blessing He had planned for me.
In saying that though, I don't believe that I personally could have come to this decision any other way. I strongly believe that God has had His hand on this from the very beginning and that everything happened according to His plan.
If I hadn't tried to do my own thing, I wouldn't have hit a wall. Without that wall I wouldn't have asked "God, where do you want me?"
I wouldn't have willingly come to the realisation that God wants me with children & made the decision to study to become an Early Childhood teacher - and I wouldn't have been a hundred percent happy with my decision, like I am now.
I am where God wants me.
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