One of the things I've learned from reflecting on my Bachelor's degree experience is that commitment is a powerful thing, and as such should be applied with care and caution.
In fact, I've had the tendency to overcommit in a number of areas in my life. I judge this has been a way I've attempted to reduce uncertainty and its accompanying anxiety. However, overcommitment is by definition a maladaptive strategy, trying to reduce anxiety about x by achieving a kind of superficial, often willful, certainty about y.
Commitment is powerful in part, I believe, because to back down from a commitment is a difficult process that can have a draining effect on one's senses of self-esteem and self-efficacy. Following through on even a non-intrinsically satisfying commitment however, excepting perhaps extreme cases where more fundamental values would have to be sacrificed to do so, results in a sense of strength, (healthy, moderate) pride, and an influx of motivational energy.
I overcommitted to taking this Bachelor's of Arts degree.
I am glad that I am finishing it, because at this juncture of my life, completion is the higher value -- but this was not a holistically made commitment, and despite many wonderful educational experiences, and the vast enriching of my mind and character that I have been able to milk from the past 3 years, carrying it out has come at a cost of tremendous effort in order to fulfill external expectations.
Sometimes this seems so wasteful I practically want to cry. (So much energy and time and willpower exerted for ends that I will forget and put behind me as soon as I can. Pieces of a finite life spent for naught.)
Because I was committed and intensely engaged with an endeavour that was in many ways not a harmonious fit with my temperament, interests and abilities it has been impossible to live a balanced life during this time.
In order to fulfill the expectations of the school program in a way which is even moderately satisfying to me, I have had to constantly work against not only my lesser nature ("ego", Resistance) and weak spots (discipline, perseverance, faith) -- both of which are essential to any worthy undertaking -- but also fight against some of my strengths and natural proclivities (a tendency to learn things thoroughly, a desire to master one or two areas at a time). I've also had little experience of teaching others or offering service coming out of my BA, which I hope I will be able to correct in future years to some degree.
The sense of being out of control and out of harmony with my instrinsic interests and motivations, particularly before I was able to understand it as such, and as necessary to the undertaking I had committed to, was often extraordinarily painful and wasteful, and put me at odds with myself.
This being at odds with myself with regards to school made it difficult to pursue harmony and autonomy in other areas of my life. (Though that may be a chicken/egg thing.)
In this last semester I have come to some amount of peace with this disharmony: I know it is impossible to pursue a balanced life while I am focusing on school, so I am "riding it out", not wasting too much energy fighting to make things "perfect". I also know it is temporary, and over VERY soon now.
Finally, in these past 3 months I came to a new level of maturity in my ability to self-discipline, to manage my time and energy. I was quite undeveloped in these areas during most of my degree, and I believe this had a major compound effect with the issues of extrinsic regulation and disharmony mentioned above.
I expect I will be happy and proud of my achievements when I finish this degree and graduate. This will be the first major project I have completed since getting into McGill's music program in 2002. I have become a more powerful thinker and writer in these four years, deepened and broadened my understandings of history, culture, fiction, society, politics, psychology, reasoning and philosophy. I've read great books, articles, watched great films, and encountered a few stunningly brilliant professors.
I think I might regret the experience too, at least for a while. As I've reflected so far this final semester I've had moments of profound regret that I did not choose a different path. Before choosing to transfer to Arts, I was thinking to pursue my personal projects in music and writing, which is awfully close to what I look forward to beginning again in earnest when my degree is finished. (Martial arts is there now too, but I started down that road just a few weeks later.)
Who knows, perhaps given a bit more time I would have chosen to do a degree like this anyways, but would have been doing it for more autonomous reasons; or done it part-time and been able to live a more balanced life along the way? In any case, I hope these sometimes regretful musings become fruitful contributions to my future decision-making.
So: my task in the next phase of my life is to foster new habits of slowly investigating any commitments before making them, endeavouring to commit to projects which are maximally harmonized with my intrisic interests, sense of purpose and meaning, and values.
Of course these new commitments will be challenging -- deeply so -- but the overcoming of challenges which are harmonized with my strengths, interests and values will bring me more satisfaction, and I suspect almost automatically make me more able to serve and contribute (at very least because these are some of my core values).
Let's go looking for the all green lights.
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