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All of us have been at that one point in life:
We find ourselves at a seemingly dead end and are faced with the decision of giving up and resigning or going back to the start, learning from certain mistakes and facing the challenge again.

“Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.” – B. C. Forbes

I found myself to be forced to decide between finishing university half-heartedly with a degree I don’t really want or going back to the start and changing courses to study for a different degree.

When I originally started university in 2005, the only aim I really hoped to achieve was to perfect my English and pick up a couple of skills that would enable me to earn a bit of money to get me through life. I chose to sign up for a B.A./M.Ed. degree so that I later could teach in school, seeing as I enjoyed tutoring kids outside of school and never really had any difficulty explaining English grammar to them. What I didn’t really take into account was that I’d have devote some time to another subject beside English. Still, I made it through semester after semester fairly okay until I went away, worked at a church for a bit and realized that maybe, after all, there was a good reason why I’d ended up doing Religious Studies at university.

For a year and a half, ever since I went back to university, I have been thinking about whether priesthood would be something I could take up on, whether I could possibly have a strong enough faith in God to share it with others. Various conversations over months only made it obvious that out of all the people most of my friends know I’d be the only one they could ever see as a priest, while yet, at the same time, everyone thought I’d be the one most unlikely to actually go through with it.

Over the past year, I’ve quite clearly stated that I am a bit sick of university and that I’d rather go out there and do something. I’m very keen on music and pop culture, I’m really into the works behind events – I kind of pictured my life to go into that direction, somewhere outside of Germany, as did everyone else.

Still, I couldn’t find the motivation to go on, to go through with my B.A. exams and writing my thesis, when I knew somehow all along, that I’d probably be taking up the other course after all and not doing my M.Ed. I then made the decision to scrape the four years of English I had and start over. Sure, I get some credit for the classes I have taken over the last few years but there is still a lot that I need to learn (foremost Ancient Greek and Hebrew!) but in essence, I am as new to this as anyone else.

And let me tell you that this feels like the best decision I have ever made in my life so far.

Many people asked me about the possibilities later on, how about how much money you can make – but really? Right now, I really don’t care. I’m in this with my heart 100% because I believe. I believe that religion is an important part to people’s lives and that this is what I am supposed to do. Going back to the start is nothing I regret, and while I’m not Brian Kinney and don’t operate by “No excuses, no apologies, no regrets”, the only thing I do regret is not having dared the plunge any sooner.

In the midst of it all, I met one of my former course mates on my first day back at uni and it was funny to briefly catch up with her. She said, “My, look at where we’ve all ended up!” and I couldn’t agree more. When we first met four years ago (REALLY, FOUR YEARS already??), we all had different aims and ideas and I guess none of us thought we’d still be here.

On that note, I shall leave you with the advice that sometimes, or rather always, it is better to follow your heart, regardless of what you think people will think or expect of you. It is you who will have to take exams and sit through classes, so you might as well do something that you are interested in.

In the end, the only expectations you have to fulfill and exceed are your own; only then, you can achieve true happiness and actually love yourself and your life.

P.S.: Due to unexpected time table changes I wasn’t able to post anything for the Wednesday Writings, sorry.