Starting at 51: Studying for Qualifications

Hello, my name is Ma.

This time, as the title suggests, I'm going to talk about studying.

I was admitted to a psychiatric ward in October the year before last.
At 50 years old, my life had been tossed about by mental illness (some people might find it annoying to hear me say that, though).

During one of my hospitalizations, there was a patient I became close with.
We formed a group of five and would hang out in the space in front of the nurse's station.
What was popular at the time was manual solitaire.
I would play with cards even when I was by myself.

I was playing solitaire even before I was discharged.
Maybe because it was before discharge (or is that why?), I was making a wish while playing.
Perhaps due to the tension of being discharged (for me, being discharged from a psychiatric ward is also the beginning of a battle with the outside world), I couldn't clear the game no matter how many times I tried.
Because I was making a wish, I felt even more impatient.
Suddenly, I realized I was making a wish for the distant future.
Then, I remembered that a friend who was still going to be hospitalized was refusing to participate in a certain program.
From my perspective, it was a program that would be beneficial for them to take.
When I played solitaire while wishing for that person to be able to take the program, the game, which I hadn't been able to clear all day, suddenly cleared as smoothly as if it were a lie.

Right after that, my friend came back from their consultation.
"I told the doctor I'd take the program!"
I was quite surprised, both because they had been so against it and because my wish while playing solitaire had actually come true.

After being discharged, I became interested in fortune-telling because of that experience.
The cards I used, which were playing cards, changed to Tarot and Oracle cards, and I am still studying them to learn them.

Triggered by studying fortune-telling, I started to have a desire to learn.
If I'm going to learn, I want to get a qualification.
First, I looked up qualifications that are easy to obtain.
What caught my eye was the Food Sanitation Supervisor certification.
I thought that if I had to go take an exam, my mental state might be unstable on the day and I wouldn't be able to go, but when I looked it up, I found that everything could be completed on my smartphone.
Yeah, let's try it. The pass rate is over 90%, so it should be fine.

It was perfectly fine.
The only thing I had trouble with was the initial smartphone setup.
Ten days after I decided to take the exam, the certificate arrived in my hands.
My thoughts at that time were...

What was my life, rotting away without taking action, all about?
If I decide to do something, there are things I can actually do.

From here, I started to dream.
I'll get qualifications in the direction of that dream. Isn't it fun to have a goal and work hard?

Of course, I was only able to do this because my illness has recovered to a certain extent.
Even now, there are days when I lie in bed saying, "I can't, I just can't anymore."
It's reckless to push yourself while you're ill.
It's important to give yourself permission to rest when you need to.

When you have a mental illness, I think it's most important to go at your own pace.
It must be at your own pace, above all else.
Having people around you rush you, or conversely, stop you too much, is not going at your own pace.

In my case, I had been stopped too much by those around me.
Having said that, I'm an adult, so I should have just brushed them off and taken action.
I followed my family too much.
It's my own fault, so it can't be helped.

I didn't tell my family a single word about taking the Food Sanitation Supervisor exam.
I assumed that my family, who dislikes change, would say, "You can live without doing things like that," so I decided to get the qualification without telling them.

Even after getting the qualification, I am studying for other qualifications.
The number of qualifications I want to get and things I want to learn in the future cannot be counted on one hand.

Sometimes, it might get tough.
Without overdoing it, I want to walk step by step toward what I want to achieve in the future, even though it's a slow start at 51.

Of course, I want to make my dreams come true, but I've come to think that even now, while I'm chasing my dreams, isn't so bad.

I've talked a lot again, haven't I?
Thank you for reading this far.
If you liked it even a little, I would be happy if you could click "Like".
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Thank you very much 😊