What It Really Feels Like To Get A First From Oxford
What changes with a world-class degree?
How do you know someone went to Oxbridge?
– They’ll tell you.
Just like vegans, students from Oxford and Cambridge have an only semi-fictitious reputation for taking any opportunity to tell you where they attend university.
To add to their hubris, these students often go on to achieve success in the highest-paid and most intellectually demanding positions in the world. (The exception, of course, being politicians.)
An Oxbridge degree is viewed as a golden ticket to success that comes with a built-in professional network and an unshakeable confidence in your intellectual capacity.
And this perspective is not entirely unfounded.
But as someone whose life seems to fit the above stereotype, the most important thing I’ve taken from my Oxford degree is not the material rewards and accolades.
It’s a lesson on the relationship between success and happiness.
So if you’ve ever wondered what happens when you get a First from Oxford, here’s the truth.
What it feels like to get a First from Oxford
It was a Monday.
I had no idea it was coming.
I had just left the house to get a haircut and had gotten halfway up the road when my phone buzzed.
*Ping* It was an email from Oxford University with the subject line “Your results”.
I froze.
My first thought was, “Oh, that’s anti-climactic…”, though I’m not really sure under what sort of circumstances I’d expected to receive the news. Honestly, part of me might’ve hoped an owl would deliver it on a scroll.
I hurriedly opened the email, followed the link, and did not believe it when the page showed I’d gotten a First.
I’ll be honest: the initial rush was pretty good.
You know the feeling when you’ve worked really bloody hard on something for years and it finally pays off. I ran back to tell my family and they were even more ecstatic than I was!
Now here comes the interesting part.
After a good few minutes of celebrating, photographing, and hugging… I still went and got that haircut.
I basked in the feeling of accomplishment for several days, repeatedly checking that the result was real. But I also continued to do all the things I was already doing: I still had to wake up on time, do work, exercise, cook, eat, and so on.
The mundanity of life persisted.
Then the feeling of accomplishment stopped.
And it was replaced by a feeling of anxiety about finding a job.
A First-Class Oxford degree did not bring me the lasting happiness I had imagined it would.
What does this mean for you?
“Boohoo, the white, middle-class, male Oxford grad isn’t fulfilled by his life of privilege.” You make a valid point, but you’re also overlooking what my example is trying to show:
You’re not going to be fulfilled by material success either.
When was the last time you got something you wanted? Something big and important like a new job or a new partner?
It felt good to finally get it, didn’t it. For weeks, months, or even years you’d been thinking:
“When I finally get that promotion, I’ll be happy,”
“When I finally quit this sh*tty job and become financially independent, I’ll be happy.”
“When I finally find the right girl/guy, I’ll be happy.”
And then you finally got it. The money, the status, the freedom, the sex, the love.
Did it make you happy? Did it scratch that itch?
For a little while, yes. But you soon found out that it didn’t permanently fill the hole you wanted it to.
That’s the lesson:
When we get the things we want, sooner or later we realise that they can’t make us happy.
This is how I felt just a few days after getting my Oxford results. It’s also how I felt a few days after landing my dream job on the Marketing graduate scheme at a top FMCG company.
On paper, my life was perfectly set up for success. But I didn’t actually feel happy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful to be in such a position and I do my best to acknowledge all the privileges that have helped me get here. But this experience solidified for me that success doesn’t directly cause happiness.
Fortunately, this is because the sort of happiness I’m alluding to is something that transcends success. It can be achieved regardless of position and background.
You don’t even need as much money as Bill Gates or as much discipline as a renunciant monk to get it.
How to truly be happy
As cliché as it’s now become, it’s still true that real happiness comes from within.
I like the phrase “You are the only person who can make yourself happy,” but it’s also rather vague.
I prefer to say:
You are the only person who can decide that you’re happy.
Because for all the fancy schmancy methods of achieving happiness, really it’s all about how you perceive the world. And all you need to do to change that is to decide that you will view your life differently.
You can do this by recognising that no external rewards will ever leave you satisfied.
Basing your happiness on external occurrences is like getting on an unending rollercoaster of suffering. You’re doomed to loop round and round in a cycle of pleasure and pain.
You start out dissatisfied with what you have, so you strive for more. Then you work your butt off to get it and finally taste some contentment. Soon, this new level of success becomes your mundane level of satisfaction and you go back to being unhappy. So then you need to go and strive for more, and, well, you know where that ends up.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that we’re doomed to be miserable our whole lives. That nothing is worth doing or attaining because it will never fill the void inside us that drags us on with an uncontrollable yearning for more.
But this is not the case.
The good news is that you’ve probably already come to this realisation and just need more prodding to help it sink in.
So read it again: when we get the things we want, sooner or later we realise that they can’t make us happy.
Don’t take this as meaning that a base level of material success isn’t a key part of happiness, because it is. Being able to feed yourself and your children is important.
This wisdom here is to pursue material success with the awareness that it won’t bring you lasting satisfaction just because you have it.
True happiness isn’t some magical, mystical feeling that spontaneously arises when you achieve everything you want. In fact, I promise you that the day after you attain your wildest dreams will be the worst day of your life, precisely because you’ll realise the emptiness of it all.
True happiness is a mundane process of repeatedly choosing to be happy right now, regardless of circumstances.
The sooner you can realise this, the sooner you can start actually enjoying life in the here and now instead of chasing after a future happiness that never comes.
Key Takeaway
Pursue material success and meet all your survival needs. Earn that degree, get that job, find that partner. Make those millions, achieve that recognition, and build that meaningful relationship.
Do it all with an awareness that regardless of if it goes well or poorly, none of it will make you happy unless you decide to allow it to.
