Long Paths and Shortcuts

                                                                                  

“How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” This line of a Bob Dylan song has been stuck in my mind for a long time, especially when I suddenly needed to find another direction to reach my goals in life. How many people have a life path chosen in their minds? How many feel lost when faced with an unexpected change in direction? How many fall down when an unwanted change happens?
In Brazil, the way that students get into college is very different from the way it happens in the US. There, students apply for specific test, called “vestibular”, in the university that they want to join. Brazilian public institutions do not require pay mentor fee to study. Because I came from a poor family and my parents did not have money to support another type of education, I studied in public institutions for my whole life.

I was always conscious of my social class and the fact that no one in my family had ever graduated. Thus, when I was in high school, I often wondered about what life in college would be like and if life would be better if I earned a degree. Driven by this thought, I invariably studied hard and did my best. Thus, I expected to get good grades and join a public university. Studying in a university right after finishing high school was the only thing that I could imagine; there was nothing beyond this objective. I could not fathom my life if that did not happen.

I clearly remember the day when I waited for the results of the test. I was reading The Age of the Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre, and there was this character, Ivich, a poor girl who needed to pass her exams or she would be obligated to go back to her parents’ house, to go back to a life that she hated. To change the direction of the life that she had created. I was so immersed in her life, so worried about her future, and I felt so much empathy because I was just like her and I could feel exactly her affliction.

My friends were not very worried about college. “Life is more than this,” they said.

“Of course it is,” I thought. But what no one knew was how much college meant to me. It was my chance to have more, to be more, and to escape of a life without opportunities. To escape of a minimum age life.

What was I supposed to do if I did not get in? There were no second chances. All I had in my favor, during my whole life, was hard work. I was not pretty. I was not smart. And, of course, I was not rich. If did not get in, I would have nothing.

It is so strange how much you deny that some things could happen to you. I was waiting for a phone call, the call that would say if I gained admission or not.  It seemed to take forever. And, then, the phone rang. I looked my mother’s eyes. I had just read the passage that said Ivich had not been accepted. I looked at her mouth waiting for the words, but I knew it without hearing any sound. I had not been accepted either.

The world stopped. No sound, no feeling.

I did not cry. I did not feel anger.

I just could not believe.

Have you ever felt like falling down? Have you ever felt incapable? Have you ever felt like your life was falling apart?

I know that it might be extremely difficult to understand the reason why earning a degree was so important to me. The truth is that college was not the end goal, but my dream depended on that acceptance.

So, there I was, in the middle of my journey, without any hope.  I spent days without talking with someone; I took buses randomly just to stand alone, and I felt that everyone was feeling sorry for me. I could not even look in their eyes full of pity.

I was feeling so deeply involved in feeling distressed about what I considered the biggest failure of my life that I completely forgot the purpose of everything.

All my life I had a defined path to follow and nothing had prepared me for the frustration of not being accepted. More than the disappointment of did not reach what others expected of me, I was terribly disappointed in myself.

In that moment I was not in the public road anymore. I was in a completely different road. I found a part-time job in order to earn money to join a preparatory course for the “vestibular”. Simultaneously, I was taking the preparatory classes and classes in a technical course.

I watched all my high school friends have gotten into college and I was stuck in these days full of tasks without any free time or achievement. However, I did not feel like a failure anymore and did not obtain what I perceived gave me another perspective. I discovered in myself a fighter. I would never give up. Things change and it is necessary to change directions. Life happens and it is necessary move forward.

This experience made me realize that failure is a question of perspective. Failing can be just another way to say that you are walking in a different direction to the same objective. And we must walk down many roads until to find out what we are looking for. There is always another way, another answer, and everyone can find another path to follow.

It might not be easy to find a new way, but sometimes the answer can be inside you or, simply, “blowing in the wind”.