Who am I?

Today, I applied to the candidata psychologiae program at my university.

It was a little bit strange, because I have such mixed feelings about whether or not I'll be accepted. To be completely honest, I don't know if I want to be in that program, or if it's just hanging on to something I would do better to let go of.

It's been six years since I was first applying for the bachelor program in general psychology. Looking back, it seems like a very arbitrary choice for me to have made. I just woke up one day, and because it was time to decide what to do with the rest of my life, I did. Don't get me wrong, I think psychology is great, and it's not that I don't have an interest in the field, but I can't help but wonder if my choice was simply a fluke.

When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist. I didn't draw every day, or even every week. I did like drawing, but as it is with most children, it was just a random image of an intangible future. I don't know many people who have actually become what they said they wanted to become when they were six.

Then, in my teens, I decided I wanted to be an architect. I don't really know why. Perhaps it was a modification of the previous dream of becoming an artist, but for years, I told everyone who asked what I was going to be when I grew up that I'd be an architect. I had my heart set on this profession without ever really knowing what it would mean.

When I got to upper secondary school, I chose to do advanced math and physics, the subjects that would allow me to get into the school and the program I wanted to get into. I did poorly in both. After a disastrous first year with a sadistic teacher, I lost all motivation to even try. I wouldn't get it anyway. It was a vicious circle; the more I failed, the less work I put into it, and the less work I put in, the more I failed.

Then came the time to apply for university. I didn't even bother applying for the program I had been dreaming of getting into for years. Instead, I put a bachelor degree in psychology at the top of my list. I got in, and the dream of becoming an architect had been replaced by a dream of becoming a psychologist. Except I don't know if it can rightly be called a dream when the main component is chance. A BS in psychology just happened to be at the top of a very long and random list when my university applications were due.

Don't get me wrong, I found the material fascinating, but two things about the transition from upper secondary school had me struggling again, like I did in math and physics. First and foremost, the lack of structure had me flailing like a fish out of water. There was just too much freedom; no mandatory attendance, no mandatory homework, no mandatory papers, no nothing. Just show up for the exams at the end of the semester and spew forth what you've absorbed. Of course, that ended up being exactly what I did. I showed up for the exams and I wrote 10-15 pages of bullshit, wherein lies my second problem: I was smart enough to pull it off. It seemed like no matter how little effort I put in, I'd always end up with okay results. Not good, mind, but decent.

Average.

That was never good enough for me before, but somewhere along the line, it started being fine. I could never motivate myself to open a book when I didn't have to. Maybe I was scared to find out that I actually was average, that it wasn't the fact that I didn't study, but the fact that psychology was just too difficult for me. To this day, I'm still not sure which it is.

Regardless of results, however, over the past six years I started very much defining myself by my area of study. For better or worse, I was a psychology student. That's what I've been for six years, and I think that's at least part of the reason why I've applied to the CP program. I don't know how to be anything else. I can't let the last six years have been for nothing.

Can I?

In addition to the CP program, I've applied for bachelor programs in English and Comparative Literature. While I have no doubts I'll be accepted into one of these, the thought of being an English student or a lit student seems all wrong. At the end of those, I'll most likely end up a teacher, which has been my dreaded back-up solution for years.

More than anything else, I feel that as I'm growing older, I'm being pushed into a conical box. The further along the path I go, the less room I have to move. My face is pressed up against the wall, and I'm looking out on all the possibilities that aren't really possibilities anymore. Not for me. They might have been options at one point, but for whatever reason, I decided on other options, and now it's too late.

I can't climb out of my box.