Back to School

This morning as I was driving to work, I started feeling incredibly sad that the new school year has started and that all the universities will also be starting soon. I remember my first year out of school like it was yesterday - and I would not trade it for the world.

To have the feeling that you have the world at your feet, you can now do any- and everything you ever wanted to do. It is the first year of the rest of your life. That year in which you make all the important decisions. Whether you want to travel, study, marry, marry rich, just have babies, etc. Of course you can change your mind along the way and all your plans won't work out. But you still have that amazing feeling that you can go anywhere and become anyone.

To have to decide what you will be doing with the rest of your life is a big choice. Will you study to be a doctor or just settle for marrying one? Will you be the next big sportsman or the next best thing to it. The world is full of endless opportunities, you just have to grab them.

I thought about my exciting time as a first year student, little in life has compared to that complete and utter exhilaration. Everything is new and shiny.  But we all move on from there and we find ourselves along the way. We lose some of who we were, lose some of who we thought we wanted to be and change into the person we eventually end up being. We all change constantly, but I think those first couple of years on your own are what forms you most. You make friends without influences from your parents or circumstances. Your choices are based on what you have learnt about the world up until now (which is actually nothing) and you judge according to your upbringing.

As I said, change is constant, and I believe it can be radical too. If you take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, you can always backtrack and start taking the better path from that moment onward, it is never too late to change anything and everything.

I think I will always think about this time of year with sadness and look back and wish that I could go back and relive it all and maybe make less mistakes than I ended up making. But those mistakes made me the person I am today: not always bright, but shiny and full of light.