“It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.”
- JEAN NIDETCH
When I reflect, as I often do, on the course my life has taken, it surprises me. As a child and adolescent I had a sense of dread about the future. I would never have predicted I could have had the life that has befallen me.
I read this quote a few days ago and it set me to thinking, how very true it is. All the grand plans, the absurd risks and the mundane decisions I have made have contributed to the sense of gratitude I now feel.
While I was growing up I had a fear of being trapped in a routine existence. That forced me to look for alternatives and forge a different path. I distinctly recall the sense of dread I had about being destined be a “checkout chick” forever. When I first acquired that job I was throughly delighted to be earning my own money and proud that I could do the same work as adults at the same time as studying full time in high school. Relatively quickly the predictability and monotony of the work began to wear me down and I began to fear that I would always have jobs just like this: tolerable and necessary at best. I’m sure it was that, that motivated me to study harder all through school.
There was a sudden realization in class ten that French nuclear testing in the Pacific was a testimony to the fact that the world had learnt nothing from the trauma and crisis of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That combined with the understanding that both the political and environmental attitudes of the times and led me to believe we were heading towards a global disaster. From that moment on I have never waivered from the choice not to bring children into such a world. I am childless by choice. The seed for that decision was born in my history and geography classes in the 1970s and I have never yet regretted it.
During the summer break at the end of high school I joined a group of friends on a surfing and camping adventure. Traveling west to Cactus Beach and then all the way to Port Macdonnell in the far south east of the state, was an escape and distraction while I waited for Matriculation results and then college acceptance notifications. I was hiding from the possibility of my tertiary education dreams shattering. Luckily that didn’t happen.
I’ve always been an organiser, a worrier and quick to judge situations and people too sometimes and always tormented myself about it. Only because a well respected friend once described me as generous, kind and analytical to my face, did that perception change. Perhaps I’m now able to see those traits as mindfulness, compassion and analysis because they were informed by experience, fear and a desire to grow.
When the pleasure I received from actively engaging in the classroom with students began to recede due to the overbearing demands of administration, result based funding and obsession with documenting and accountability, did I consider the bold step of working overseas. That one choice changed my whole life. I had already discovered that moving up the ladder wasn’t viable for me. Taking on senior roles involved doing work that brought me no joy or satisfaction, but classroom teaching as challenging and exhausting as it could be, was indeed my happy place.
The bold move to take all our savings and buy one way air tickets and a camera to take up teaching positions in China just months after the Tiananmen Square massacre started a chain reaction and one that I can now say I’m deeply thankful for. There have been moments of dire emergency and regret along the path but the ride has been exhilarating.
I can clearly remember a day in Hiroshima (yes I ended up living there for 8 years - it had already so shaped my life) when I had walked to the Immigration Office at lunchtime to renew my working permit with a huge bundle of supporting documents assembled by my employer, and the whole process went like clockwork. Strolling back to the office I looked down at my neat office attire and stockings. Wearing that in incredible heat and humidity was ridiculous but it was an expectation of the workplace, which by the way was still a classroom. I simply thought, “Look at me!” I wasn’t boasting but instead adulting in a way I never conceived myself capable of.
I do not mean to say that I have lead an extraordinary life. Quite the contrary I believe I have lead a very ordinary life in a diverse number of places. Living simple, ordinary lives with local people in their own communities is a privilege and provides insight.
My working life has turned out to be one that surprised me in its depth and scope. My twelve-year old self could never have imagined that I could set myself free of the anxiety and overwhelm enough to have taken the steps and risks I did and risen to the challenges and demands.
I could go on. There are numerous examples of choices, both good and bad that shaped my life.
I recently read that in English we make decisions. In some European and Asian languages you take decisions. In German you apparently hit decisions. But whether you make, take or hit them I’m grateful to know I have the courage or motivation or whatever it is for them to have changed the course of the life I thought I was destined for.
Having said all this I am happy to be able to continue to take the reins and lead the life I choose and equally happy to be no longer working.
