For some reason today is a day where I really feel the need to update this blog. And, as always, when I say "update this blog" I mean "think out loud on the internet".
I think the reason for the sudden need to vent may be a realisation I had at work today which is that, while I'm no less focused on my course I feel as if I have completely lost sight of the end goal somewhere down the line. I don't mean that I've drifted away from my modules at all, I'm just as focused as ever on the course work, assignments and desperately trying to claw a decent degree out of this. I don't doubt for a single second that this is what I want to do and, even when I'd really rather spend my time doing something other than sitting on my bed with a laptop (the table just doesn't feel right to type on) I'm always happy to have stuck it out and done the work every week. What I mean by having lost sight of the end goal is that I feel like I may have ended up far too comfortable in my role and somewhere down the line I've told enough people that I'm studying as a 'hobby' rather than for any kind of professional ambitions that I've started to believe it myself. Leaving my call centre hell to end up doing 9-5 business sales was a brilliant decision. I'm by no means living the dream here but it's decent money and a pretty cushy job as these kind of things go. The key point here is, I think, cushiness. It's so easy to fall into a comfortable trap of making decent money and working good hours and losing sight of the fact that there may be something, somewhere, outside of this.
I started my degree originally as Politics, Philosophy and Economics and toyed with the idea of changing to International Studies before finally settling on politics. The main points that all these subjects have in common is a connection to the larger world outside of the small boxes we all fit our lives into. I started studying to try and develop an understanding of why the world works the way it does and to try and use that knowledge to change it for the better. The end goal was always to work for a charity of some kind, preferably one attempting to deal with poverty at an international level (i.e. Oxfam and co.) but ending up in a comfortable position made me lose sight of that.
I don't want to complain about being too content because this whole irritation is, frankly, ridiculous but at the same time I feel like it's important to remind myself that there is an end goal. Not only that but my end goal should be the same as everyone else; to make sure that when I leave this world I've made some baby step, however minute, to leaving it in a better state than when I got here.
Sometimes it takes realising you've forgot that to remind yourself that that should be the end goal above pretty much everything else.
