Stuck — Pat Dryburgh

I’ve been spending some time over the last few weeks contemplating which path my life is taking, and whether I am on the right one or if I need to make some changes. One of the biggest decisions I am thinking through right now is the decision to apply to university.

At the moment, all of my consumer debt and taxes are paid off. I owe money to my dad that I am paying off now. I don’t have much money saved, though I am trying desperately to work on that. However, I look at this idea of going to school and as bad as I want it, I have all these doubts about whether I can even do it.

In the past I’ve been very good at taking big risks. I went to Bible College when I was 18. I quit a full-time job to join a rock band. I left my home to go work at a church up north. Unfortunately, each of these risks has left me in huge amounts of debt, with nothing to show for it at the end. So, now at 23 looking at the possibility of going to school, I’m scared.

Scared.

I never get scared.

I can stand up in front of thousands of people and sing and play my guitar without thinking twice.

But I think about this idea of school, and I really feel scared. I’m afraid of taking this chance and screwing it all up like I have done in the past. The stakes now are just way too high. On the other hand, I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing now for the rest of my life. I don’t love it. I hardly like it. It’s scarier to think about staying where I am.

I don’t know what I want to go to school for, so I think I will just take a year of general studies until I can decide on a major. I don’t even know what I want to be when I’m finished it all. I just know that I want to go, really badly. I want to be challenged, to challenge my brain again. I miss the intellectual pursuit.

So, I want to go. I’m just scared. I feel like a kid who’s on skates for the first time walking towards the hockey rink. I can see tons of other people really enjoying it, and I know that once I take my first few steps I’ll do amazing… it’s just hard to convince myself to step out on the ice.

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