The Jane Genie

They say we should do something everyday that scares us. I don't think this is particularly helpful advice. Eventually people would end up pushing the boundaries of their abilities and throw themselves off cliffs and swim with great white sharks and build jetpacks in order to get their kicks. Which, I'm sure, are all very achieveable in the correct place at the right time, but are not particularly practical if you decide to put a wetsuit on when you're supposed to be heading to a business meeting and as a result get your head bitten off by an angry sea creature.

Nevertheless, courage is something I think we all feel we need to have in some form or another. To use another fishy metaphor (I watched Ocean Giants on Sunday night) southern right whales have bollocks that weigh one tonne. That's a lot of balls. Unfortunately I am neither a whale, nor have bollocks and a result my confidence levels, for the most part, are not very high.

Getting a job helped; I can now behave like a normal human being in a shop. Having had experience seeing how rude people are to shop assistants I feel as though I have a good grasp on how to get them on your side and that it's not a completely insane thing to do if you ask for a little more salt on your chips. That being said, asking me to cut a sausage roll open lengthways and fill it with ketchup is disgusting and you should be ashamed. I digress.

My point is that as a person who keeps getting emails from her university saying SEE YOU IN ONE MONTH, I feel distinctly lacking in confidence. I haven't bought anything. I attempted to make a shopping list but the task was mammoth so I watched Bradley Cooper flashing his eyes about in Limitless instead. Seeing Anne was a bit of a breakthrough I suppose, because if she can go all the way to the other side of the world for six months and come back in one piece then moving three hundred miles away (and remaining in the same country) isn't such a daunting thing. It's still a challenge.

I think I have to start being a little bit more selfish. I am very concious of the fact that I spend a lot of my time worrying about other people. I need to stop, and focus on myself. Be my own best friend. Bilbo Baggins admitted to being selfish, and he lived to 111 and a bit. It worked for him. The tricky thing is it's very hard to change a way of thinking that you've relied on for so long. Especially when you don't know how it's going to pan out. Someone close to me made the good point that surely moving away, where no one knows you, and where presumptions you carry from home can finally bugger off, is something to get excited about rather than fear. She was right, of course. Why carry an albatross squawking negativity on my shoulders when I can pick up a nice snowy owl that doesn't really know me yet, but is ready to find out?

I figure that's the point of university.

That and you know, getting a degree to have job you want.