Motivation (An optimistic ramble? Who knows)

Motivation (An optimistic ramble? Who knows)

This time last year was...rough looking back. Fresh out my GCSE mocks and at that sweet point of stress where I coudln't feel it anymore- stress diabetes, I labelled it. 11 subjects for 10 qualifacations and oh boy would my demons not let it go if I faied any of them, even more so my dad. Revision was a distant memory and I was off out with my two best friends - the rocks I thought would carry me for at least a large chunk of my life.

My relationship was fresh, my anxiety high and my therapy sessions weekly. 

The contrast with now is startling to me in a way. Yes, 

Re: Motivation (An optimistic ramble? Who knows)

(This got cut off bc I've got fat fingers and I sent it too soon so I wasn't done and the edit feature has helpfully disappeared)

The contrast with now is startling to me in a way. Yes, I still have mocks, and yes I'm still so incredibly stressed about it, but it's different now than it was when I was forcing my way through GCSEs. The one thing I told myself as I did anything but RE was that when I got to my A-levels it would all be so much easier, that I'd be doing subjects I enjoy so comitting it all to memory would be a pleasure, but I still knew in my heart of hearts that I'd then be doing anything other than law (ah the days I thought I could tolerate law).

The thing with it is that I was right, surprisingly. Yes in theory the reigonal differences in America in 1860-1890 and the different types of voting systems used in the UK should make me want to cry, and slightly less theoretically starting at them on my wall does, but when it comes to it I wake up wanting to do it and at the end of the day I do. It was a task pulling out topics on the now 15 flipchart paper sized mindmaps I've done in the last two weeks that I could honestly put as boring. I've remembered what it is to take an intrest in my studies (and why I'm a ravenclaw) and I finally want to suceed for me, not the fear of failure that's fuelled my studies for the past two years.

The human mind, and espcially the minds of chidren and young people, are naturally inqusitive; a fact that many of us seem to forget as we all force ourselves through the school systems. I mention this because many of the people I see on here frequenly are my age or younger, and woth that comes some wisdoms I'd like to impart on anyone who finds themselves reading this, especially so if you're drowing in exam and school stress.

First: when you want to do it, it will get done. It's sounds cliche when I type it like that, but when you want to finish something and see it done well it will turn out as such. I realise now my almost obession of not only passing everything but getting good passes set me up for disappointment in the end, as now all my GCSEs are a flatline, and don't actually show what I'm good at or why I took the subjects I did as I headed into higher ed. It got to the point where I stopped caring about the subjects as individuals, just as one large lump that neeed to add up to a high enough number. I didn't get a single top grade, mostly average or just above, and I felt as if I couldn't really do anything. It wan't until I actually had an invested intrest in the subject I was doing that the As and A*s started to appear; it was the most happy surprise I'd had in my school career. In case it comes across this way, this isn't a way for me to gloat about being good at my grades, just to show that when it comes to it, find what you want and really commit to it - you're better off being really proud of having a two or three amazing grades in subjets you love and a fail, then having all passes but not really feeling proud of any of them.

Two: things will ease up and you will remember the curiostiy of your childhood. At some point, be it next week, month, or year, things will be more managable and the world will be lifted from your shoulders. This is pretty much an 'it gets better' message, but it still rings true. Your life won't always be notes and mindmapping and flashcards and missing out on the things you were so desprate to do but couldn't because you have mountians to climb first. This time last year I was begging my parents to let me go to see panic! and a decent few festivals, but the impending exams were hung over my head like a tonne of bricks. This year I am actually seeing Panic! (if you're going to the UK leg of the tour message me, it's a long shot but I need a buddy) as well as going to the festival I've wanted to go to for years now, and they can push me on through hours three, four and five of my long mindmapping days. Even then, I can find myself relishing in the articles and (especially) documentaries suggested to me by teachers and departments. I'm awaiting now the time to sit down and enjoying the extra information and insight these products can give me, instead of them all feeling like assignments piling up one after another.

Three: finally, choose what you want to do around your subjects when you get the chance to choose them, not your subjcts around what you want to do. The opposite is pushed in main education: find a career and work towards it. That, however leads to the oh so common issue of hating what you're doing but you put up with it because that's the job you want to go into. It may not come as a surprise to find that if you hate law you'll hate being a lawyer, and it'll come back to bite you when you realise it was the extra subject you took becuase the block was available and you're intrested in that you really want to go into. I see too many people stressed and complaining on their social medias about how much they hate what they do even when they chose it themselves, and many of these people followed the narrative of choose one career and work everything around that. Study thr things you love and you'll find youself doing what you love to do. I love media and politics (as much as I hate the gaming set text for the former) and want to spend as much time as I can taking it all in and learning. Those things have culminated in all these essays  I wite on here - I'm finally getting an idea of what I loveand want to do, not what will make me the most money.

So, as the third mindmap falls from the sloped ceiling of my room and my fat fingers make this even more disjointed than I ever anticipated this to be, I leave the skinnies that got to the end of this with my final message: motivation comes to those who wait, not to those who will it. Nurture your passion and it will drive you, and most importantly allow your talents to seep through regardless of what others may say or think as that is the key to happiness, at least while in school 

-Allie