My Seven-Year Hiatus: How I gained True Desire to Learn in a Seven-Year Gap After High School

Like many others, my high school experience had its ups and downs. For me, it had more downs than ups, mostly because of my exceptional needs and the fact that I had to be placed in a school that met them. I attended a vocational school focused on building hands-on skills to prepare me for a career. The trades courses included auto repair, cooking, and woodworking. In contrast, the academic courses, such as math and English, were modified and structured according to the program's specialized system, tailored to my academic learning needs. You might be wondering what was so bad about my high school experience if the program's accommodations were designed to help me succeed? None of the courses offered in the program matched my interests. I wanted to go to college, but most of the program’s focus was on trades rather than academic-level college, so I didn’t graduate with a valid secondary education diploma; rather, I received a certificate documenting high school completion, which couldn’t get me into college. It could barely get me into an applied-level college. All it did for me was gain a credential to work. Work where? I had no idea. I didn’t know what I wanted to study in college either, so it may have been a good thing that I didn’t go after high school. But I knew deep down that I wanted to do more than work for money at a regular day-to-day job. It took me about seven years to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with my life, and I wouldn’t take back a single year. It was not a waste; it was a life-changing experience that helped me grow as a person. I know this may sound crazy, but trust me—It was worth it. So, sit back and get comfortable, because I’m about to share why it is okay not to rush into anything after you finish high school.

After I graduated from high school, I worked part-time at a grocery store. I didn’t get paid much, but I didn’t care. I was happy to get a job at that time because, as my high school teachers kept drilling in my head, “you must get a job after high school, or you will end up on the streets.” This negative fear-based approach to teaching didn’t work for everyone, but it sure worked well on me—something I will elaborate on in a later post. I worked at a grocery store for a year. I was 18, fresh out of high school, and I remember my father saying to me on my first day of work, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.”

I thought to myself, “Is it?” Like every caring parent, my father just wanted me to succeed, but his definition of success didn’t match mine. He wanted me to work hard at the grocery store, earn more hours, and maybe even promotions, which would take years. Keep in mind that I was still very young and ambitious, and that I didn’t see myself working in a grocery store for the rest of my life. I wanted to be something more. I didn’t know what exactly, but I knew I wanted to go to college and explore my options, so I looked into applying to an applied-level college. My mother was very supportive of my decision. She helped me look for a program online, and we found one at Humber College that didn’t require a high school diploma. Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it was. After enrolling and attending classes, I found that it was just another career-focused program to learn basic life and job skills. Even the academics were so basic that I found it demeaning to my intelligence and skills. Don’t get me wrong, I have learned some useful things, and I did get some positives out of it. I made many friends whom I still see to this day, including my spouse. Under the circumstances, I made the best out of this experience by helping my classmates with their assignments when they were struggling. This made me feel useful, and I genuinely enjoyed it. As I look back, it’s partly the reason why I ended up in the career I’m in today.

I also had the opportunity to take an elective scriptwriting course in the film and television program. I have always loved movies and the idea of making movies, and I had a lot of ideas to share, so I thought it would be great to learn a little bit about scriptwriting. This program lasted two years, and I graduated with yet another certificate. This one was a certificate of participation. What will this get me? Another regular day-to-day job. I was back to square one. I remember my father saying to me after I finished college, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.”

I thought to myself, “Is it?” My father, of course, wanted me to find a job, but the kind of job I wanted to do was probably not what he had in mind.

I learned a lot in my film and television courses, and I finally realized what I wanted to do: make movies. So, what did I do? The only thing I could do. Write, write, and write. I wrote several screenplays over the course of six months. I had so many ideas swirling in my mind that I thought would make great pictures. I didn’t even care how it looked, the spelling, grammar or anything, I just let my imagination take over while my fingers did the work. Yes, they were messy. They probably didn’t even look professional, but this was only the first step to what I wanted to accomplish. The approach I had in mind was to write as many screenplays as I could, edit them later, then make them into movies. I knew I needed hands-on experience to become a filmmaker, so I had to find a job in the field. Since I did not know where to start or how to look for a job in the film industry, I decided to attend film school to learn the skills I needed to become a decent filmmaker and gain hands-on experience to help me set up job opportunities. Tuition was overly expensive, so this wasn’t the best option for me financially. I wasn’t discouraged by this, since many successful filmmakers didn’t go to film school, so I decided to continue studying film independently while looking for a job. I requested help from a community support agency to find a film-related job. There weren’t many options out there, unsurprisingly, but there were possible opportunities to volunteer. The agency looked into a volunteer position at a local theatre where I could serve as an usher. Since I had a little experience as an usher at a movie theatre during one of my college job placements, I figured this would be a good start. In the meantime, the agency encouraged me to get involved in the community. I got involved with a media-focused agency, which helped me land a part-time contact research agent role at a non-profit organization called Community Outreach. They later hired me to make a commercial promoting their organization, which I thought at the time was a big opportunity and a major stepping stone to my pursuit. I had never written a commercial before, and I didn’t know whether they wanted it to be done a certain way, so I wasn’t invested enough to put in the time and energy to create one for the organization. I ultimately decided to abandon making the commercial and left my part-time job with Community Outreach.  I figured another good way to get my foot in the door in the film industry was to work as a photographer. I figured that film and photography go hand in hand, so this could lead to other opportunities related to film. The agency found a nonprofit newspaper company called Snap, which had multiple volunteer photographer positions. I had an informal interview with the editor of Snap, who went over my potential role as a local event photographer. The editor seemed to want to give me a shot (no pun intended) at the role. As flattered as I was, I had second thoughts. Something didn’t feel right about taking this on. Maybe it was a case of imposter syndrome, because the editor was speaking to me as if I were a professional photographer. I only wanted to be a photographer to gain an opportunity in the film business. I decided this might not be the right path to becoming a filmmaker, so I declined the offer.

The agency found me another volunteer position at Rogers, which was more closely aligned with my interest in actual filmmaking. I attended an orientation with other volunteers at a Rogers studio, and the responsibilities included hooking up microphones and setting up sound, lighting, and other equipment. This seemed like a more promising opportunity, and I was ready to take on the challenge. Rogers has several branches in many locations, and I had to pick one relatively close to where I lived at the time. Many locations with volunteer openings were too far from where I lived, and the hours were too short to go all the way there and back, so I decided this wouldn’t work either.

It was turning out to be a difficult search for the right place to start my filmmaking career. As I struggled, I continued researching filmmaking on my own, with a view toward making my own films. To add to the books I read on filmmaking, I read books on more general topics to expand my ideas. I read history books, science books, and other materials that sparked my interest. In high school, I wasn’t interested in any of these subjects, but my filmmaking journey motivated me to learn more. I developed a thirst for knowledge, so I kept on reading and invested more time in educating myself. I was finally learning things I wasn’t able to learn in high school, and it was very exciting for me. Books have also significantly improved my reading skills, as mentioned in my previous blog, “Late Bloomers: My Journey from Struggling to Read to Writing Fiction.”  In that post, I went over how reading non-fiction books influenced me to read more fiction. The more novels I read, the more interested I became in writing novels as opposed to screenplays. I eventually switched from wanting to be a filmmaker to wanting to be a novelist. It was difficult for me to let go of my desire to become a filmmaker, but I realized that all I wanted to do was write. I chose not to volunteer with film-related organizations because I didn’t want to go through the many stepping stones to reach a high status in the film industry, as they would get in the way of what I truly wanted to write. I thought about making independent films and starting my own production company, but there were a lot of hoops to jump through that I wasn’t willing to put the time and energy into. The high chance of failing also discouraged me. Even if I had been successful, to what extent would that success be in my film career? I had a broad vision of what I wanted, but I knew I didn’t want to make or write films to be a celebrity.  Ever since I was a kid, I never liked the idea of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. I just wanted to make art without going through any soul-crushing gateways.

So, I started writing novels. It was a slow and difficult process, and I found myself wasting a lot of time procrastinating on my writing. I knew it was going to be a challenge to get a book written, let alone getting it published. I knew there was no guarantee I would make a living as a novelist, so I decided to find myself a career to fall back on—not a meaningless job to make ends meet, a meaningful, stable career that would motivate me to get out of bed every morning and look forward to going to work. I wanted a career that didn’t even feel like work and would allow me a work-life so that I could focus on novel writing during my downtime. But where could I find a career like that? With these newfound interests and curiosities I explored during my self-directed learning, I ultimately decided to get a high school diploma so that I could go to college—mainstream college. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to study, but I figured a college education would increase my chances of finding the type of career I wanted. All I needed was one credit to get into college, so I decided to take English. There were many programs available that accepted students with one English credit. I thought to myself, “what kind of career should I pursue that relates to writing on some level?” Back at Humber College, I volunteered to help out my classmates with various life and social skills. I thought that since I had proven myself able to overcome my own learning challenges, I could do the same for my friends who also struggle in certain areas of their learning. At this point, I discovered my love of learning and my passion for helping others, so teaching seemed like a perfect fit. To become a teacher, I would need to complete four years of university and go to a teacher’s college—a long way to go to earn a teaching degree. Plus, the level of credit I’d been planning to achieve was only enough to get me into applied-level college, so I had to find something else that might relate to helping others in some way. Social Work was a more realistic field for me to study, so I researched options accordingly. I stumbled upon a program for Personal Support Work, which includes supporting senior citizens. This was something I could see myself doing, and I was about to pursue it until my mom told me about another program that trains individuals who want to become Educational Assistants (EAs). An EA is a person who supports students with exceptionalities in a classroom setting. I had EAs supporting me in school, so I thought this seemed like a very meaningful career for me to pursue. I never thought I’d get a job like this, but all I needed to apply to this program was an English credit, so it didn’t seem like a long shot. It was a very special decision because of my own personal experience struggling in school, and my passion for helping others. My mom suggested I volunteer at a school first, to see if I’d enjoy it. My mom was an Office Manager at an elementary school, so she was going to put in a good word for me to volunteer there.

The agency helped me find a Secondary Education English course. It was an online eight-to ten-month course that allowed you to go at your own pace—perfect for me, just the type of experience that made my personal learning journey positive. There were no due dates for the assignments, but I had to complete the whole course in eight to ten months. That seemed manageable, so I built a daily study routine. I started strong, and I was getting good grades. How about that? It seemed like all that self-directed learning paid off, but somewhere down the line, I started procrastinating more and more. Maybe the course was getting more challenging, or maybe it was too flexible for me to stay consistent. Whatever the reason, I discontinued studying the course and didn’t meet the deadline.

I was back to square one (again), and I knew I couldn’t go to college without a secondary education diploma. I rationalized that Educational Support was only one option for me, and I didn’t have to pursue it. I decided I still wanted to pursue post-secondary education, but an option that didn’t require a high school diploma for admission. This wasn’t possible for college, but an option for professional learning institutes and apprenticeship programs. All I had to do was think of a career to study. I considered many career choices, such as a bicycle repairman, based on the results of a career survey I took in high school. I liked the idea of running a shop where I could fix bicycles all day, and the best part about this option was that it would have been seasonal. I would run the shop during the summer and take the rest of the year off to write. It sounded like the perfect option, so I looked at some bicycle mechanic training programs and apprenticeship programs, but the only similar options were car repair-related. Fixing cars wasn’t something I was interested in, but it seemed like a useful experience that could benefit my bicycle repair skills in the long run. I signed up for an auto mechanic training program, but my sister suggested that I not go through with it because she knew it wasn’t the right line of work for me. I knew deep down that she was right, so I withdrew the program. I considered becoming a horticulturist based on the grades I got in my horticulture high school course. I decided to study plants or botany, which also aligns with my interest in science. The idea of working as a florist sounded like the perfect career choice for me—I could garden all day and come home to write. It sounded like a fair balance, so I did some research and found an online course for plant growing. This option intrigued me, especially since it was online, but you know how I did when I enrolled in the online English Upgrading course. I kept my options open. I considered going to college to study horticulture, but I only spotted programs for landscaping. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a landscaper, but I was willing to try it out. It seemed like hard work, but something about working in the outdoors appealed to me. Besides, maybe landscaping could help develop my horticulture skills. With this new interest, I asked the employment agency I was involved with to find me a job that related to outdoor work. They found me a seasonal job at a driving range, where I would do outdoor maintenance. It has been a long time since I had a job when I started at the driving range, and I felt a sense of accomplishment, even if it was seasonal work. The problem was that it was very tedious work. All I did for most of the day was pull weeds, something I’ve despised doing. Not to mention that it was during the summer, so the heat made it even more unbearable. I got so hot and exhausted that I took more breaks than I was allocated. I ended up doing absolutely nothing in that job. The owners would nitpick at my job performance to a point where I couldn’t handle the criticism any longer. I realized that outdoor work might not be for me after all, so I decided to quit before my seasonal contract ended. It just wasn’t worth it. I still had some interest in horticulture, but it seemed there weren’t many career options for that field. If I wanted to be a horticulturist, I might need to start my own business, which would probably get in the way of my writing time.

I ultimately decided to upgrade my high school equivalency diploma. It was my girlfriend, Tara, who is currently my common-law spouse, who helped me change my mind. This time, I wanted to learn in person rather than online because I might be more motivated to succeed in a classroom setting.  A year into my relationship with Tara, she told me that she wanted to go to college and study Early Childhood Education (ECE). Tara had a similar education to mine. She didn’t graduate from high school with a diploma either, so we decided to take the upgrading program together. After we completed our upgraded high school equivalencies, we went off to Sheridan College. Not the same campus, but the same college. She studied ECE, and I studied Educational Support, which was my initial interest. Each of our programs lasted two years, and we both graduated with post-secondary diplomas. Now, Tara is a Registered Childhood Educator, and I am an EA with the public school board. It was a long way to get the career I have today. Honestly, without Tara, I probably would still be stuck and indecisive with what I want to achieve in life. I am grateful that she pulled me out of that endless cycle and that the two of us supported each other in succeeding, even if we were chasing different fields. But as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I don’t regret any of the seven years I’ve wasted. Because none of it was a waste, it was a journey of self-discovery. It was a mission to find my purpose, and thanks to Tara, I found it.  Seven years may seem like a long time, but the longer the better. It gave me a lot of time to find myself. I’ve explored many subjects through my personal interests and true desire to learn. I became more aware of my passion and dedicated myself to something meaningful on a day-to-day basis, rather than jumping into a career that I might find empty and meaningless to me. My role as an EA also makes my writing goals more meaningful, especially since I write for young adults. Working at a high school inspires and motivates me to continue writing, so my career helps me fulfill my desire to write for at least one hour every day during my downtime. Even this post is an example of me incorporating my writing and my passion for helping others to reach their full potential. So, if anyone reading this who is still in that stage of indecisiveness, don’t worry. It just means you’re still on your journey to self-discovery. No matter how long it takes, you will figure out where you want your path to go. The same goes for the younger readers. If you’re in high school and don’t know what you want to do afterwards, you have plenty of time to figure it out, even after you graduate. If you want to do post-secondary education, don’t just go because you think it’s just something you do after high school, as I did. Make sure you study something that relates to your interests and apply somewhere that fits your skills. I didn’t decide until I was twenty-seven, and even though I wanted to attend an academic university at first, I went to an applied college because the field I chose doesn’t require a university degree. Post-secondary, whether it’s academic or applied, does not define how smart you are. It is designed to help you learn the skills and use the tools you need to succeed in the field you’re choosing. So, don’t go chasing a name; go to a college that offers the best program to study the field you’re pursuing. Even if you don’t earn enough credit to enter post-secondary, you can always repeat your senior year until you reach a certain adult age or upgrade your high school diploma, as I did.  Some career fields don’t even require post-secondary education. If you’re interested in working in the trades, an apprenticeship or a training course would be just fine. There are many options out there; use the time to figure out which works best for you. If you allow yourself to explore your interests beyond the boundaries society has conditioned you to follow, you might discover your true desires to learn, which could also lead to your purpose.