Our future

I was having this conversation with one of my closest friends a few weeks back, and we were to trying to come to terms with the pressures and anxieties of our lives. We're both in 2nd year of uni and struggling to keep the show on the road, with both life, love, family and work. Where is the moment for fun in this?

This week i had 2 deadlines, one i handed in yesterday and the other for tomorrow - as yet unfinished. My boyfriend broke up with me 2 weeks ago because he's got commitment issues - among others - and the balance of my life was screwed. I know that in a way it was positive for it to end, because there is no way i could have done this work if i felt the pressure to have him over, to spend time with him after class and go for lunch. Now i'm using all my spare time to go to the library and conquer the work load until the early hours of the morning. How is it that my life is so full that i haven't got time for my friends, or a boyfriend? It's pretty sad, and i'm far from being the only one. Was it always like this for young people our age? To not have time for what my degree tells me is the most important thing - finding a mate.

The problem stems from the pressure we all feel not to fail. In Norway and Sweden, children don't go to school until the age of around 6 or 7, while here i in the UK we started around the age of 4 or 5. From that early moment in our lives, we are voluntarily placed in the cattle corral that will be our lives for the next 2 decades of our lives. 2 decades! Our most formative years are about passing tests to prove our worth to the system, our later years are about life-altering exams that will dictate our futures. Fuck up aged 16 and the world almost ends! Universities will pick an A* GCSE student over a set of As and Bs any day, and yet we're barely at the age to figure out what the point of the whole thing is for. A levels are the gateway to your future potential, and without good grades your university placement opportunities are pretty poor. Then you get to university. i'm surrounded by kids my age who are questioning what the hell they're doing here, why on earth they chose that degree, what's it all about? Age 17-18, you are made to chose the direction of your life.

Some adults tell you that it doesn't really matter, that you should try different things. I met this business executive at one of my mums corporate cocktail parties who told me to stop being so afraid of failing. That it's ok if it doesn't work. I told him that i didn't believe this to be so, that my life was actually a roulette of hit and miss, and dropping the ball was tantamount to a disaster! Our generation is so well educated at this point, more so than any before, that we are fighting for our very lives to stay and, basically, be OK. Not even to be incredible, just OK. Existing. If i apply for an internship, i know that there are probably about 100 others exactly like me trying to snag that placement. If i apply for a job, there are people with 2 degrees compared to my 1 that are competing with me. Our parents have figured out the system, and the system is one of little bits of paper that say "i'm worth it. i passed the test". But what does that really mean? Do those chemical engineers whose whole lives it is to study and have no social life really enjoy what they are doing? Do they even care? Their parents are concerned with one thing: will my investment in this child be worth it?

Well, will it? What is the point? Our future is already mapped out for us, despite the superficial exterior of presenting so much freedom of choice. Really, life is about ticking boxes, getting the grades, looking good on paper. In all of this, where is personal development? Worth derived from the heart, friendships, love, social contribution? Value of knowledge, intelligence, learning - and not the ability to regurgitate what we've been told we should know. There is a stark difference between people who know how to pass exams, and people who actually care about what they are learning. Its not a dichotomy of good and bad, its just the choices that have been made for them. Are you good at maths? Take economics. Be an investment banker. Make loads of money. You like reading and art? Do it in your spare time.

It's the sickness of our generation, and future generations to come. Why are we so depressed as a nation? Because we are constantly made to feel as though our worlds are going to crash if we don't pass that next exam, or see a gleaming red A at the top of our essays. What kind of life is this?

And why are adults so shocked that our generation is so bored and unenthusiastic about engaging with the world? We're exhausted!! We're so done with thinking at the end of the day, after so many years of hard slog, that all we really want to do is watch a movie and switch off. Entertainment is designed for those who don't want to think or pick up a book and imagine. Everyday i read thousands of words by academics, and write a few hundred of my own. I don't want, nor even have the time really, to pick up a book when i know i should be working. I'd much rather sit and watch Ugly Betty or House and have my mood lifted than feel the anxiety i always feel.

I was speaking to that same friend about this, and she said she had noticed that we are becoming the people think we should become, because of social/family pressure, and how that's different to what we should actually do.

It's odd that popular culture tells us that we can be whoever we want to be, in movies, achieving your dreams, but when it comes down to it we mostly settle for we know we can actually get without truly striving for it. It's the pressure of our generation that we have more opportunities than any previous generations, and yet we're so exhausted by the pressure of exams and the fear of failing that we just...can't quite get there.

The world is an uncertain place, and we're terrified that at any point we'll let everyone down and be humiliated broken people who will never get anywhere simply because we made one mistake.

And i don't think we're wrong to be afraid. There is so much competition between bright people in the world for the few good jobs that if we wait too long or miss a step, or get 69% instead of 70% and miss out on a 1st at uni, our lives are ruined. The lfiepath we were suposed to have disappears in a puff of smoke.

We've been driven by our parents since childhood that we have to have a plan, plan, plan! But in the end, did their lives go according to their parents plans? to their own? i dont think so.

When i went to that cocktail party, the man told me i had to stop being afraid of doing it wrong, so what if i do? then that business isn't for me. People make mistakes all the time, it doesn't stop us from getting right back up and trying something different.