In ten years don't check for me. . . I'll be in the same place.
- 2 minsWell. Fourteen actually.
All those years ago, almost to the day, I was sat in this exact spot pondering my future. Staying in the same hotel room. Eating the same meal. Drinking the same drink. Listening to the same song.
At the time, the opportunity being mulled was to take over the management of a shop following a few years of working for the company. At the time, I lived in a sleepy town within a hugely deprived area. With no marketable skills beyond a strong work ethic, any opportunity was a big thing.
“Should I keep two part time jobs, one of which is cleaning toilets. Or should I take a risk, move to a new place with nothing more than a backpack of things and trust that it’ll work out?”
The choice was obvious given the circumstances, and all these years later it has certainly worked out. Whilst the sleepy town hasn’t changed, and is still the place I call home, that hard work ethic resulted in excelling at the retail opportunity presented to me. The store went from literally the last place in the company rankings, under threat of imminent closure, to top ten out of 1400+ stores in under twelve months. Within a couple years of me leaving, it slipped back to the bottom and closed.
Whilst in that role, I created another opportunity. It turns out that listening to Marcus Aurelius’s letters to Lucilius for an hour at 5:30 am every day, six days a week, gives you perspective on a dead end job. Going to University provided the opportunity to develop a highly marketable skillset in software engineering, and the network to support it. That rolled into a multi award winning role in education outreach, university lecturing, event management, software consultancy, mentoring, and public speaking to name just a few things. All originating from the decision to develop a software engineering skillset.
Fourteen years later, sat in the same spot, I’m using that skillset to work remotely.
It’s a skillset that is in demand globally, coupled with being most comfortable in situations others are most afraid of.
Whist there’s not an opportunity immediately ahead of me, there are some big decisions.
Instead of Marcus spurring me on, Epictetus is keeping me company.
Rather than choosing between a pathway forward and one facing backwards, there’s a spiders web of worldwide walkways to wander along.
Will those walkways lead me back here again in fourteen years time?
Who knows 🤷
But I have taken the first step out of the past and into the future. I don’t have to put up with the budget room bookings of a failing company. Today, I control my environment.
Unlike all those years ago, instead of mourning my favourite artist who passed away that day, I’m grateful he’s here to guide me. Hell. . . I even lifted the title of this post from one of his songs.