Friday, August 23, 2013

All this Time

3 weeks.... that's how many weeks I have until I am officially done with my Master's degree.

At 3 weeks, you would think I would be over the moon excited to be done.  You would think that I would feel some great sense of accomplishment.  Mostly I just feel like a load will be lifted.  Sometime this summer I think I came to the conclusion that while I'm proud of myself for sticking it out and getting it done... I don't really need it.  I don't need this degree to validate anything to myself or anyone else.  I am enough.  That's a lot for me to come out and say because most of the time, I don't actually believe it. But lately, I actually do.

I am enough.  Just how I am right now.  I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that.

So I'm trying not to lose sight of my accomplishment but I'm also trying to be realistic when I set off on making any more goals.  Typically as I come to the top of a goal that I set for myself, I'm already plotting my next move... what goal do I need to achieve next.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I haven't thought of it.  I could do a MiniMBA, certs like CISA or CISSP, or even just make the goal getting through the awesomely large and long project I'm on at work. 

But I don't really want to do any of those things.

I really want to just pause.  I want to be selfish for me.  Not the me that's trying to please everyone and make them proud but the part of me that demands ice cream at 10 PM at night. The part of me that sleeps in late on the weekends and shops online too much.  That's the part of me that knows what I really want.

I am going to spend the next bit of time just getting back to me and who I am so I can figure out what it is that I want.

To think, all this time I spent working on something that in the end, doesn't really matter.