'I stopped learning when I turned 21 and I think that’s a shame'
Yes I have a degree but my education doesn't have to stop there
The summer I turned 18, my boss tried to talk me out of going to university. She reasoned that I was too young to appreciate the education I would be getting. I disagreed with her, mainly because I was determined to have a legitimate reason to experience living away from home, away from under Mum’s watchful eyes. When I expressed this to my boss, she just shook her head and told me I should continue working and go to university when I was in my 20s, having given more thought to what I wanted to study, and ready to make the most of the resources available to me. I told her I already knew what I wanted to study and stood my ground. Three years later I had my Journalism degree and, having spent the years following as a writer, magazine editor and now author, it would seem I made the right decision. But more than a decade later, I think my boss may have a point.
I suppose it’s inevitable that any big life change will cause you to stop and take stock of the life you’ve been living and what you want to get out of it. For me personally that has been the illness that has taken over my life pretty much all year. But The Pandemic has affected all of us in some way or another in the last two years, causing a huge shift. Friends of mine in the entertainment business have had their income sharply decimated. One friend shared that they had lost around £40k from cancelled gigs. Others have left rented apartments they could no longer afford, and moved back to the family home. In 2021, most industries are slowly recovering but still, the stability we once assumed for our livelihoods has been shaken and while that has been devastating, it has opened up the opportunity for something new.
When I left university, the only “mature students” I knew were people in their mid-20s doing a PhD or Master’s degree and they seemed really old. There’s an assumption in society that learning is for the young and it's my observation that most of us don’t go on to study anything more once we have the coveted degree and/or letters after our name. But yesterday, a friend told me she had just signed up to join a course which will allow her to start a degree next year. The global crisis we’re in has caused her to dig more into health and she realised she wants to know more so that she can share her knowledge as an official health practitioner. Another friend starts her degree next month. She has already started working with vulnerable young people but wants to have a better understanding of the varying needs she comes across. Both of them have worked since they were 18 and have good jobs, but COVID-19 has caused them to pivot.
I’m personally not planning to go back to university just yet, but I am thinking about the things I want to really learn more of. I did my first yoga class at the tail end of 2014. Shortly after that, I went and did a ski season and didn’t practice for six months but I took it up again when I returned and continued practicing hot yoga on and off for about four years. I have good balance and I’m strong so ask me to do dancer’s pose in high heels or balance in crow - easy. But when lockdown hit and we had to do our own practice at home, I couldn’t. Because even after all those classes, I had not memorised a single sequence! I hadn’t needed to, I simply followed the teacher each time. So I’ve now switched from hot yoga to MySore, which is a self-led style of yoga where each student receives individual teaching within a group environment. I love it because while we are all doing the same sequence of poses, each student focuses on her/his own practice of a set sequence and is free to choose her/his own pace. As part of my recovery from chemotherapy, I dedicated myself to practicing every day for two weeks and it has been incredible for both mind and body. I never really enjoyed doing yoga at home with an online teacher but now that I actually know what I’m doing, if I can’t attend in person, I can continue my own practice by myself.
I’m not advocating that everyone quit their job to become a student and of course there is nothing wrong with going to university at 18. But I do think it’s important to consider that there is always something new that we can learn, regardless of our age. Yes it may take three years to get a(nother) degree, but the time will pass anyway! Why not spend the time doing something you really want, for your future you.
Doll x
PS. I had a huge response to my last newsletter, ‘I’m calling it quits on chemotherapy’. Thank you all for contributing to what has been a huge topic of discussion. Please do use the comment section on each post to feed back your thoughts. So much of what I read from you would be encouraging to others!
Read more of my funny, sad and sometimes downright bizarre life lessons in my award-winning book, Still Standing - 100 Lessons From An “Unsuccessful” Life on Amazon now in print, audio and Kindle editions!
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