Every Thought I've Had Since Leaving College

Trust me, I've done a lot of thinking.

Dropping out of college is something I never thought I'd do.

UC Santa Barbara

But in doing so, there's so much I've learned.

I've never liked school.

And I know a lot of people don't, but I don't think I ever realized I was one of those people. Up until college, I did pretty well in school, and I think I enjoyed having good grades and feeling smart more than I actually enjoyed whatever I was learning in school. It's not that I don't like learning. I think that everyone always has more to learn and they should learn more, but being in the school and the major that I was, I was miserable in having to work so hard for a career path that wasn't my first choice when I could be spending that time working on one that was.

I realized I was investing all my time into my plan B instead of my plan A.

I did this because my plan B, to just get a bachelor's degree, in what was originally Economics and then later Psychology, and then get some office job at some decent paying company felt way more reassuring than actually following my dreams did. I don't think it was bad of me to want a backup plan, but to put in so much effort to live a life only worthy of being called a "backup" doesn't make any sense.

I spent a lot of time afraid that I would fail, and I wasn't wrong.

I most certainly would've failed at a lot of things, and I most certainly will continue to fail at a lot of things, but eventually I'll be successful at something. That's something I couldn't get through my head when I was in school. In being afraid of failure, I deprived myself of learning experiences.

That's why I don't regret having did what I did.

Some people ask me if I regret the choices I made whether it was going to the school I did or even not being currently enrolled now. The answer is that I don't. I've definitely learned so much from my professors and so much more from my experiences in college, but I left because I wasn't being true to myself about what I wanted, and it took being broken down in college for me to realize what I was doing.

Hitting rock bottom was the best thing that happened to me.

For the first time in my life, I don't feel afraid to fail. I sacrificed so much of myself to get into a good school because I thought it'd make me happy, but then when I got there, so much of what I worked for when up in flames. That made me realize that no matter how much I try to prepare for the future, I can never fully predict what will happen. While this might sound terrifying, and it is, I realized that you can't guarantee your happiness in the future, but you can work on being happy now, and that's honestly the best thing you can do for yourself.

Mental health should always come first.

I really can't stress that enough. I don't really have much else to say on this matter except if you only take one thing from everything I've said, let it be this.

And finally, am I going back to school?

The simple answer is yes, but when and where I'm going to get my degree is not something I have an answer to. Right now, I'm just working on improving myself in every way I can and, as cliche as it sounds, I'm following my dreams. It doesn't mean college is out of the picture; it just means college stopped being the single most important thing in my life.