Rachel's Ramblings

Decisions

In life we all must make decisions, lots of them. Sometimes we get a long time to ponder before having to decide. Others we must decide instantly. From a young age you are constantly asked what you want to be when you are older. This is one of those decisions you have time to ponder on before committing.

If I think back, the first time I was asked that question was in grade three, at that time I still had nine years for school left. Yet at that age I had decided I knew what I wanted to be, a teacher. Ha. If only life was that easy.

I was, still am, that kid that loves to take any material, from towels to blankets to t-shirts, to design an article of clothing – mainly it was dresses. So then eventually – even my parents thought that maybe I'd be one – I thought "Hey! I love designing clothes so why not be a fashion designer?". Yeah, no. That went out the window fast. I enjoy designing clothes, FOR ME! I don't care about what is the latest fashion trend and the best brand. I care about how it looks on me and whether I like it or not.

So now I've decided, I don't want to me a teacher nor a fashion designer, now what? Now I'm in – I think – grade six or seven. Well I went through this blank period where I had no interest in what I wanted to be. I think it lasted until I was in grade ten? That was when – in one of my subjects, design – we began to focus on our design discipline, I chose Visual Communication (graphic design) more specifically, multimedia graphic design. Damn did / do I love that. If I were to go back to school and do one subject, I'd choose design. So that should give me a good idea of what I'd like to do right? Yes and no. You see I do want to be a graphic designer but I also kind of want to do something more, although I'm not sure what more is.

By matric I was like: "Screw this, matric is stressful as is why do I have to decide on what I want to do now when I just want to finish school." So that was my decision made. No, not my career decision, I still to this day don't know what I want to be, but my decision on what I want to do after school.

A gap year.

But wait, it can never be that easy now can it? No, of course not. Now I had to decide what I wanted to do for my gap year – hint, hint work out what on earth I wanted to do as a career! – and so it began. Half hearted (at times) research on what to do during a gap year. Eventually I figured it out, kind of.

Then I blinked, and it was December of my matric year, and I was having an amazing time with family and friends. And then I blinked again, and it was January I had received my matric marks and was now leaving to go over seas for work in the UAE followed by three weeks of traveling in the UK in February. And before I knew it, I was back home. Two months into my first year out of school, 2020.

Dammit, now what? So, it started, online courses on everything that I think I might be interested in. As I'm writing this we are now in May, and I still don't know what I'm interested in – in fact I've added onto the pile of 'maybe I'd enjoy this as a career' – and I'm still doing online courses. I still don't know if I want to go to a university or a college. I still don't know what I want to study or if I want to study. To make everything easier we are under COVID-19 lockdown. Note the sarcasm. So, any job experience that I wanted to do during this year has go out the window. Grr!

Decisions are hard, especially when your decision may lead you to spending a lot of money on something that may or may not be a waste of money. I wish there was less stress placed on the idea of you must decide about what you want to do and study 'now'. You want to make the right decision not only to save money but also to save time. Yet sometimes you are too stressed or under pressure to make the decision.

So far, I have decided that I'll figure it out as I go. It's not going to make much of a difference if I stress about it. Who knows maybe I'll stumble and crash into a great decision and my life will be sorted? I sure hope so.