Self Doubt, Interrupted

As I listened to a speech in the Great Hall at Parliament House in Canberra, waiting to receive my Bachelor of Arts degree, I pondered the significance of the occasion.  Here I was, after six and a half years of multiple essays, presentations and exams; countless tutes, lectures and lecturers; numerous psychological breaks, meltdown and tantrums; thousands of dollars of textbooks; one stupid, incomprehensible textbook that now has a broken spine; many late nights; too many deadlines; hundreds of headaches and panadols; two eye glasses upgrades; and one computer meltdown. 

But yesterday, none of that mattered, as I was about to receive that all-important piece of paper; a symbol of hard work, perserverance and commitment.  But it also represented something much more important to me.  Yesterday I had a bit of a personal breakthrough.  Despite my life-long questioning of my ability to do just about anything, I gave myself a break and thought: "I earnt this, damn it!  I'm wearing a friggin' mortar board on my head, so I fit in here as much as anybody else".

I certainly wasn't so calm and collected when I entered the Great Hall, as I discovered that my old foes, anxiety and self doubt, also wanted a piece of the action. The two graduands who were to be seated next to me arrived soon after, and we spent the next half hour in friendly chit chat; covering uni, career options, current work, travel, family. 

As usual, I was a good 15 years older than most of the kids in the room.  Which is probably for the best, because I would likely have just joined the public service after graduation if I had gone to uni straight out of school.  And if I had joined the public service in my twenties then I would, without a doubt, hate it even more than I do now.  Which is a sobering thought.

Of course we also discussed the more pressing matters of the day, like graduation shoe choice, our hair styles, the appropriateness of certain outfits for such an occasion, the thickness of the robes' fabric, the gradient and workmanship of the ramp we were to come down, and reassuring each other that it was strong and sturdy, and how incredibly intelligent we all looked, and would probably never look again. 

In that half an hour, Anita, Kristy and I - brought together by the ordering of our surnames - became each other's sounding board.  When times are uncertain, people tend to stick together; and we worked through an important social process.  Most of the graduands would have been feeling some type of nervous anxiety, and, looking around me, everyone was expressing it in different ways. 

Some people were sitting quietly, some needed to chat, some fiddled, some closed their eyes, and some were completely indifferent and played angry birds on their mobile phones.  For me, my interaction with these two complete strangers got me through that last half hour, and shot down my internal anxieties and doubts.  Group information processing to release nervous energy and anxiety - often we don't even realise its importance in everyday contexts in getting us through moments that we perceive to be bigger than we can handle.