I choose pause over race—challenging societal expectations and finding fulfillment in authenticity, home, and inner peace
By Sobia Khatoon
This October, I will turn 25. A quarter of a century lived–and, if I were fair in reckoning it. It is as though twenty of those years were spent as the same being: as a student. As long as I can recall, I have been living in a world of classrooms, tests, homework and endless striving to earn grades. Since my early school years up to the time I submitted my final dissertation as a master’s student, academics had written my script.
And now, that script has ended.
This is the first time in my life that I am not enrolled anywhere. I will not be in a hurry to meet deadlines, I will not write, and I will not wake up in the agony of exams. My mornings are free, my nights quiet, my days long and undisciplined, the first time in my life. It should feel like freedom. But it doesn’t. It is almost as though there was some heavy silence. It is the silence I refer to as joining unemployment.
The Strange Silence After A Lifetime Of Studying
Going back, I cannot deny that I liked being a student. It was not just an obligation: I was proud of that. The charm of a good grade, the thrill of getting to the head of a class, the garbage of knowing that I was a good student– these became my stabilisers. I was not afraid of studying; I was afraid of failure. And somehow that fear kept me in shape, even when I was too tired.
Nevertheless, every degree that I took brought me to the next. I wished to go to college after high school. I got to know that I would require a master’s degree after graduation. One step was like leading to another. Not even once did I feel that enough. Until now.
It is the first time that I sense that I have put an end to a chapter. I am not in need of pursuing a degree. I do not wish to get into the vicious cycle of more. I want to pause. However, when it comes to stopping, it is not easy.
My days at home now have a certain dullness in them, not that which books can resolve. I can divert myself with housework, with shopping here and there. But I cannot go back into books just to stuff the vacuum. I am sure I had better take this silence than to tie myself to some other thing of pursuit of which I think society deems me.
The Weight Of “What’s Next?”
As soon as you leave the academic cycle, the world does not give you any chance to rest and question you. The same question is always the same: What is next? No individual has ever told me, It is all right, if you stop. ” It’s okay if you stop here.” No one is counting the twenty years that I have put in studying, like that does not count. Instead, they give suggestions such as a script: research, PhD, competitive exams, jobs, and careers. This is not a questioning, but a foreseeing, impatient, nearly reproving tone.
There are times that I would rather reply flagrante: What is next is peace. What’s next is rest. The next thing is that I should take myself back after years of meeting deadlines. But I don’t. I smile politely. I nod. Indoors, I take the burden of their inquiries.
It is weird to see how easily some make suggestions to do a PhD, like it was a pastime activity over the weekend. Yet, as the deadlines strangle me, as the deadlines squeeze me, none of them will be there. No one will stand by me when I am almost on the verge of failure. There is a tendency in society that forces us into races that it has no interest in running with us.
And this race is endless. Every stage demands the next. It is not just enough to graduate, it is not just enough to complete a master’s, or even research. It is always more.
The Identity That Stays
Although I am no longer in classrooms or lecture halls, I still have the identity of being a student that lives silently within me. It manifests itself in the little, mundane situations, such as when I balance a household budget on Excel, when I remember the logic of supply and demand, when I see a crowded market, or even when I start to use books to find answers. These practices remind me that I can never set education aside like an old uniform; it has been integrated into my worldview. I can no longer have my report cards printed, I may not have my exams scheduled, but the discipline, curiosity and resilience that studying has taught me are still there. I cannot recollect all the models, all the theories, but I recall enough of them to be able to walk around with a feeling of silent dignity: that I have studied, I have suffered, I have matured. That is an identity that will never go away.
The Fear Of Standing Still
The feeling that predominates over this stage is pressure in the case of there being one. The need to do something, to establish myself, not to stagnate. However, it is just a standstill, which is what I desire.
I am terrified– not with being idle, but with being misconstrued. Fear that my decision to stop will be construed as a sign of weakness. Fears of being rejected as retrogressive because of desiring a home and a life based on home. In other words, they fear that unemployment can be considered a vice besides contemplation.
And yes, I am scared because I was used to seeing women in my family work. My mother was a working woman, and this provided us with independence and stability. The women in my life worked, bought clothes and provided financial respectability. I respect them deeply. But simply because they chose, must I be compelled to do it? Why is it not permissible for society to have differing versions of independence?
Independence to me does not mean just making a paycheck. It is also making this decision not to be ashamed of the life I want. Independence means that one can say, “I would like to create a home, and not be scorned at.” Independence entails the fact that I can quantify the increase in peace and fulfilment rather than salaries and upgrading.
Not resting is not necessarily a failure. Sometimes it is courage. The heart to be defiant to a race not of mine.
Merging Work & Dreams That Do Not Fit The Mould
As much as I fantasised about working, I understand I would only be able to work in a manner that lets my personality and priorities breathe. I cannot give up those long hours, outside the house, and I cannot create my life when family is second to deadlines. Given the chances that would allow me to work freely, play a crucial role and still be able to maintain the core of my house, perhaps I would take the chances. But I will not put work in the form of a label of value.
My ambition goes beyond the social limits that society demands. I desire to travel, write, and live a creative and peaceful life. I would like to give myself up to the people I love, to raising relationships and future generations. And these are not the type of dreams that we glorify about in our contemporary conversations about success, but they are mine. They are not the stereotype, and I have no intention to impose it on them. Personally, I would not quantify growth with promotions or salaries, but with inner contentment moments, emotional, spiritual, and very intimate moments. It is what kind of life I would live, run, and it is what kind of work–had I ever done it–I would wish to adjust to my most real self.
Entering Unemployment
I am here then: I am not studying, absent, but neither lost. Unemployment is what society refers to; to me, I prefer to refer to it as a pause, a moment to get back to myself. Yes, there is fear—fear of financial reliance, fear of not accomplishing as much as women did in my own family, fear of being viewed as inferior. Yet courage too in hazing other things.
I find the lack of a job to do to be not unsettling, but the continual questioning: What is next?
What’s ahead?” I only want people to realise that not everything is always the bravest thing to do. There is a need to live without haste to the next milestone in life. An additional degree, another title, another plan is not needed to show my value.
I want to reserve a place for women like me, who do not just find fulfilment in their careers but also in the making of the home, in nurturing, in the establishment of an easy-going rhythm of life. This course of action is not regression; it is just a variation of progress– quiet, gradual, and significant.
To me, the aspect of being unemployed is not a failure. It is a rebellion against the uproar of expectations. It is a statement in the sense that I will determine how I will live my life, and the way of growth will be shaped towards areas that make sense to me. And when that growth appears not like what they suppose, why not? Now, the respect of staying as close as possible to what society wants is not dignity, but sticking to one’s decisions.
And to everyone who’s obsessed with “what’s next?” — let’s bring a little economics into it: I’ve survived all these years on my father’s capital, and if the labour market doesn’t provide a role that respects my constraints, I’ll simply reallocate my resources and live on my husband’s. No shame, no apology, just efficient allocation of assets and maximising utility. That is my choice. End of story.
so************@***il.com