I don’t know why I’m still surprised by people and what they put their focus on, what they consider important or valuable. 

Several people in my family considers nothing I have accomplished in the past 10 years as valuable or as something proper. I’ve worked the front desk of a hotel for more than 10 years, I have the qualifications to work as a front desk manager, be a part of a hotel’s management team, I have the qualifications to train people to learn to work the front desk. I am qualified to be a teacher’s assistant, none of this matters to them simply because I do not have a Bachelors Degree. So, my entire work career is worth less than my sibling’s achievements, which is pretty much going to school for approximately twelve years to end up working as your average office clerk, more or less. 

Also, if I drop out of college now, I’d better look for a man, even though at my age, the good ones are probably already taken. Well, I guess it’s a good thing then, that I’d rather stay alone, then settle. 

This is just an example to show what people consider important. Those comments were uttered after I shared my feelings concerning my studies, that I don’t feel that I learn what I’ll need to work in my chosen field, and that there is a lot of stuff we’re learning that no one will ever need while exercising the job. And that this means I am wasting a lot of my time for nothing. Three years of my life actually. That is a long time to spend on school which teaches you a lot of unnecessary stuff to make sure it’ll take you three years, instead of focusing what is really needed and maybe shorten the time it takes down to one year. Everyone keeps telling me this is how it is. That I should just accept that and stop complaining. That I’m overreacting. 

What they don’t understand is that I have spent years sacrificing my time for a job I didn’t really enjoy just because I needed to do something to earn money. And then I suddenly had time for myself for the first time in seven years and I realized what it was that I had sacrificed. I am no longer willing to sacrifice my time, my life essentially for something that I don’t see the point in. 

I’d much rather spend it on something that I enjoy. On things that bring me joy. Why is this so difficult for people to understand? Why is a degree more important than a person’s happiness? Why do so many people put the focus on the wrong thing?

I’d rather be happy and know I spent my time on things that matter to me than waste it away in a classroom just to be able to say I have a Bachelor’s Degree.

I’m old enough to make that decision, to understand what really matters.