How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
I was eating myself alive for years after quitting university. I was on my first year of grad school and I quit after a few months. It wasn’t because I couldn’t do it or because I was failing my classes, I was far from it. I simply didn’t see a future with it anymore and I quit in pursuit of something else.
I had a plan to go back to school but I wanted to study diplomacy. I never went back because, through work, I got into project management and I kind of find my place there. I saw my abandonment of higher education as a failure but it brought something better for me down the line. If I had stayed, I would’ve been finishing uni during the pandemic with low prospects of finding a job being a language graduate. I “failed”, threw stuff at the wall to see what would stick and I found a better career for myself.
I do miss being able to speak Spanish and Italian fluently. Over the last 6 years I didn’t have much chance to practice, but I wouldn’t go back to it if I had the option. I can always renew my skills, study at home, find some foreign friends, but I know that if I stayed in school, that love I had for foreign languages and studies would have died. I would probably feel stuck working in education or as a translator and everything that brought me joy about learning languages, would disappear with years.
What I perceived as a failure was not only a lesson in taking risks but also a lesson in learning how and when to quit.
Love,
Luna
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