Living in the Uncertainty
Over the Easter holidays, I worked for three days every week to earn some more pocket money for university. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I work as a river tour guide with the oldest punting company in Cambridge called Scudamore’s. Alongside giving the history of the Cambridge colleges, I also have to sell tickets to different people on the street and this allows me to earn some extra commission on top of the money I get for the tours. Unfortunately, a few years ago, things got so out of hand between the different punting companies with the the competition that the council had to intervene and now Scudamore’s is only allowed to have 7 people up on the street selling at one time. This means that on a busy day when there are a lot of tour guides in, we often have to sit out for a bit between tours whilst we wait for our turn to tout. Whilst I was put on time out (as it’s referred to), I met one of the new tour guides who, as I began to discover, was actually a 5th year medicine student at Magdalene College in Cambridge. I began to see quite quickly that he was a genuine guy who was fun to speak to and as such, the banter flowed very easily. For instance, we began to talk about how lucrative his medicine degree would be once he graduated and how unpredictable my career path would be as a history student when I graduate (lol). I digress, I was honestly amazed by this guy’s composed demeanour as a student who’s decided to take on a degree that is notoriously so challenging. Especially as a student at Cambridge who has to take a degree in medicine for not 5 years but 6! Out of genuine curiosity, I asked him how he confronts uncertainty. He laughed and said to me that whilst things are often uncertain, he doesn’t make decisions in his life based on certainty and stability, instead he bases his decisions on the unknown and as such lives for the risk. As someone who often takes comfort in having a plan of where I would like to go, such a statement intrigued me. How can you pursue a degree like his that requires so much time and investment, whilst being that settled with the genuine fear of failure? It was as much an inspiration to me as it was a curiosity and it made me look to myself on how I could improve my attitude towards uncertainty.
Everyone knows that the first year of university is one that does not necessarily count towards anything and yet such news has not necessarily pacified the recurring anxiety that I tend to have towards any final examinations. As you read this, I will be back at Durham to complete my final term of my first year of university, which is a strange thing to say. Before going to university, I viewed one month as a crazy amount of time to be away from home but multiply that time by two or even three and we were coming into a territory of time that certainly felt alien and extensive to me. Yet, I blink and suddenly it seems that I’ve jumped from the first term to the last. It’s gone by so quickly that I wonder if I’ve even had the time to take it all in. For all the terms so far, I’ve had to hand in coursework with my formative and summative essays, which is perhaps the reason why it’s felt as though I have not fully taken everything in. With my mind being so present in the work, there wasn’t much time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. However, with this term, things will be slightly different. Once I finish my lectures and seminars, which will be centred around revision anyway, I have two weeks of exams and then it’s finished for year one. I don’t know why part of me feels a little bit anxious. If anything, I should be thankful that all my exams are online and open book because at least it’s not necessarily one of those taxing exams based solely on recall. However, I’ve grown to realise that a lot of my moments of anxiety come from when I’m not sure of the outcome. Whilst in some regards, these exams will be easier than ones I have done previously, it’s harder in the sense that it amounts to something already and these will be the first exams that I take at university. It’s also slightly harder in the sense that I have to be much more insightful in my essays by bringing in material from the readings in my seminars, which is different to the structure of my essays for the exams I had done previously. As such, I think that the more I don’t know about what will happen, the more my mind fills in the blanks about what could happen and as such, a feeling of anxiety gradually creeps up on me.
When I began my first term of university, I wrote a short paragraph for Instagram that was all about learning to be in the present moment. In the post, I included the famous quote from the French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire, “Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” I meant what I had said at the time about life being more about the journey than the destination but sometimes I need to remind myself to live more in the moment than in the stories that I create for myself about what could lie further down the line. As such, I may think I know how these exams will be but in truth, I will never know until it happens. Instead of worrying about the future, I should focus on all the things I can do now to prepare and try to enjoy the process a little. That was the point that Guillaume was attempting to get at when he talked about the concept of pausing in the pursuit of happiness. It’s all about reminding yourself of the reason why you started the journey in the first place. I came to university because I genuinely enjoy learning history and I also enjoy writing. I also came to university because I wanted to grow as a person and make new friends. Whilst the exam season is a period of focus and concentration, the process of revision is part of a wider journey of bettering my understanding of history, which is part of the reason why I came to Durham in the first place. Although my attention will be on the exams, I am also entitled to be a human being and have a social life and I’ll be doing my best to ensure I maintain that too. When the exams do come around, I’ll take each one as it comes. As a result, I think learning to be more present in life, is the best way to deal with uncertainty. We become anxious about uncertainty when we start to overthink what could happen in the future. Taking a step back and appreciating the now, however hard it can be, allows us to be calm, enabling us to handle the uncertainty.
22/04/24: Always trying not to be afraid of investing in something, even when things are really uncertain, is a hard thing to do. The upcoming exams are making me feel anxious because I’ve invested a lot into this year and I don’t want to have the exams be the moment that I fail. It has made me look further into the future too. What if I pass this year and then fail the next? What happens then? At that point, not only have I then invested two years into studying, but I’ve also invested a lot into something that hasn’t worked out. I suppose I fail and I fail spectacularly. But I would rather have failed spectacularly after giving it everything I have then not try at all. It’s scary and painful to fail but it’s better to fail then not to try at all.
These were the words that I cathartically wrote in one of my journaling sessions recently. To be honest, I think that the overall message that I got out from my worries with the idea of “failing spectacularly,” was really the overarching point that my colleague at work was trying to put across to me. My colleague said that he lives for the risk and I think that’s the correct attitude to have when it comes to any challenge that we face in life. If everything was secure and certain there wouldn’t be anything to strive for and as a result, we wouldn’t even be standing here living in the first place. The whole point of life is to go on a perennial journey of bridging the gap between where we are now and where we would like to be and so, in essence, we are trying to seek purpose in the challenge. Of course we don’t want to get caught up in the future too much; it’s important to be present in the journey, as I’ve said previously. However, we must learn to do things despite the risk because that’s the only way we can seek purpose in life. My little passage from my journal probably catastrophises the situation that I’ll be in. You’re probably raging at your screen right now thinking, “Fuck, Juliette, this little online exam is really not going to be that bad!” You’re probably right. In fact, I know that you’re right. But whenever I feel anxious about the unknown I like to spell out the worst thing that could possibly come of the situation. Then I realise that the chances of that happening will be very slim or that if it does happen, I will be able to deal with it. That gives me the confidence to attempt the challenge despite the risk of “failing spectacularly.” That is ultimately how we begin to approach life’s many uncertainties.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog post. Are you someone who gets anxious about exams? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll be sure to reply to them. I love hearing what you have to say!
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See you next week,
Bye,
XOX, Juliette