Why Dropping Out of University Was the Best Decision for Me.
Reconnecting with yourself when you feel like you are in the wrong place.
In university I started running, even though I hate running, just to get away from the campus. I ran through the suburbs across the road from my dorm room, my white and purple shoes pounding over a changing ground: dry pavement, crunchy leaves and, sometimes, snow. I’d run all over the cracked sidewalk, imagining what kinds of people lived behind the doors of those houses. Then, I‘d run down a little dirt path and stop at the edge of a large pond to watch the ducks float free.
I dreamed of becoming elusive. I liked the thought of leaving my fingerprints, or footprints, all over a place and then evaporating away from it. I wanted a road trip, an airplane, a vacation, anything to free me up.
Instead, I contented myself with buses. Sometimes I’d hop on a city bus, coughing out grey exhaust as it lurched forward, and ride to the mall so I could walk the halls of a building that wasn’t my residence or any place that belonged to the university. I window shopped and wandered the aisles of the grocery store, looking at food but not buying anything.
On the weekends I’d hop on a bus and travel home, staring out the window and watching the road get eaten up by the tires. I began to realize, after months of this, that there was something deeply misaligned in the way I was existing. I kept getting the hazy feeling that I was consistently suppressing something that wanted attention and that, inevitably, I’d have to face it soon.
This was supposed to be “it”
I thought this was the path. University was supposed to be good. Everyone said it would be the best choice. Everyone said I’d make friends for life and stock up the memories and there would be freedom, at university, in a way I’d never find again. I did make friends and memories, but I could never hit “mute” on this internal whisper for help that rose up within me when I was alone.
One semester, I got a job sitting in the back hallway of a university building, watching the coffee cart. I didn’t actually sell the coffee or collect change or anything. I simply watched the cart to make sure nobody stole anything, which would have been, maybe, a welcome jolt of excitement since almost nobody bought coffee from the coffee cart.
I’d sit in the badly lit back hallway and write essays and message friends and wait. One time, a guy from my dorm hung out with me for a little while. I barely knew him, but I told him that I’d rather drop out and become a barista while I figured myself out a bit more than be at university. At least then I could focus on writing, which is all I really wanted to do anyway. I dumped my dissatisfaction on this poor, unsuspecting guy who was probably very happy to be in university. He scrunched his eyes and asked, trying to be nice, “So, if you dropped out and became a barista. Would you be … happy?”
I had no idea but, to me, it couldn’t be worse than sitting by a coffee cart and running in my spare time. This wasn’t what I expected from university. I felt claustrophobic and bloated and chronically distracted all the time.
Belonging is hard
Why am I here? Why am I here? This question became the familiar, pulsing undercurrent of all my thoughts. I could cram it out for a little while, filling my head with words from novels or conversations with friends. The issue was that I felt wrong all the time. I would retreat to the soundproof piano rooms in my residence and play the piano for long swaths of time. Like running, I was desperately cranking any release valve I could think of, circling around facing the truth for fear of what I might find there.
I had no idea what I wanted to do. I switched majors so many times it started to feel like a hobby. I took classes in Dutch, East Asia, Psychology, Economics, Recreation and Leisure, and English. Lots of English. Even then, I knew that I was searching for myself in these classes. I was hoping that if I could brand myself with a major, as so many other people around me had, then I would feel anchored. I wanted to feel content.
Instead, I felt like a marker in a box of crayons. Similar, but not at home.
It took me three semesters to have the courage to face myself. By then all the whispers that had turned into scream-whispers. By then, I had tried everything.
I had my nose pierced instead of studying for exams.
I went to a Mennonite church with my friend on Sundays.
I went to a Zumba class.
I went to a yoga class.
I wrote long non-fiction essays about life.
I kept running.
I watched movies in the middle of the night while doing laundry.
I kept getting on the bus.
I kept dreaming about switching my major.
Ultimately, I was internally running away from one chronic fear: if I drop out, will I have failed myself? Would I be throwing away opportunities?
Even worse, would I fall behind that perfect life timeline that everyone else seemed to be on? Would I be missing out?
A simple exercise to figure out what you want
A year and a half into university, the restless dissatisfaction won and I decided to drop out. I expected to feel crushed by the loss I inflicted on myself. Instead, I felt profound relief settle over me.
I thought that, maybe, this was a fleeting feeling so I decided to ask myself the same question every morning when I woke up. I asked myself this before the other thoughts poured in and clouded my judgement:
Are you still okay with dropping out?
Every morning, the answer would be:
Yes.
Instead of feeling suffocated, I felt internally spacious and free. The possibility of the blank space of my life, which I had previously run from, beckoned to me, inviting me into the unknown with a cheeky wink.
You’d think I would have felt devastated because I was suddenly “behind.” Instead, I looked around my life and realized that “behind” isn’t the worst place to be. It is roomier behind the pack. There are more paths to explore, branching out from the main road, that you can see once you slow down enough to actually look. There is also less pressure to stay ahead of a race you aren’t even sure you want to win.
Release is freedom
I quit running. That one, tired, pounded-out path wasn’t the right one for me. I took a different trail. I became a nanny. I went to college. I worked at a summer camp. I got an internship. I wrote what I wanted to write. I actually did return to university years later, but I finished it on my own timing, at my own pace.
Release is freedom. It is not all loss, watching the things we cling to fall away, leaving us wobbly and unsure on new terrain. The internal journey is the real one, the one you get to discover away from the noise of the crowd. It is the quiet place within that is the propellor toward the true adventure, the one you can never get at via bus or plane or endlessly running over the same cracked pavement.
If you feel out of place, get familiar with your internal home, your internal guide map. Ask yourself questions in the dark quiet of the morning and listen deeply to the answers. Remember that you aren’t falling behind or out of place.
Release is freedom and the measure of success is your joy.
