this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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20-something years ago, I was a struggling student with a shit side-job and a so-so relationship with my family. Life felt like being a hamster running in a wheel, it felt like there was nowhere to go.
I had dinner with a friend of mine, who announced that he was leaving for a study-abroad year for our last year of masters degree. I was glad for him, but definitely envious, and he told me: “well, do it too then”.
I spent the next 30 minutes trying to explain the myriad of things that were keeping me down in my life, but he dismantled them one by one.
Like:
• “But packing my studio apartment will be tedious…” - “So you’ll live the rest of your life in that apartment?”
• “But money…” - “You know you can take a reasonable loan for this and that it will pay off in opportunities.”
• “But I’m the one keeping everything together at work.” - “And they know it, it’s not in their interest for you to be find a job in your degree’s career. They’ll ask you for favors forever. You should look out for yourself there. It’s probably a good thing to make it stop now and have you be unreachable a while so they can figure it out.” (This was before smartphones.)
• “But my family will hate it.” - “Because they also don’t want to let you go, you should look out for yourself there too.”
He was spot on about everything, and eventually, I had run out of excuses. That night I ended it with a non-committal “I’ll think about it”, but that small conversation started a big train of thoughts that changed everything about how I made decisions. Basically, it turned me from being someone quite risk-averse and shying away from things, to becoming someone unusually risk-seeking and ready to take on opportunities that would present to me as much as I could without letting anything keep me down.
I wasn’t able to join the program he joined because the deadline had passed, so I had to carve out my own study-abroad opportunity, so I did. It was scary and tedious, but it paid off. Interestingly, I now live halfway across the world from where I grew up, and he is back in our hometown. We lost touch over time, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize how this small conversation that day changed everything of the path I was on.
Oh. That's such a great story. Thanks for sharing it..
.. and it's most disturbing because I had a kind of similar discussion with a friend two days ago. I was in your position. And ive been thinking about it ever since. Not about traveling but about job hopping/leaving my job/avoiding risk v.s. taking a leap.
I recently quit my managers position so I could have more time to work on growing an audience on YouTube! I know that sounds stupid but the job was kinda toxic and this has been a big dream of mine for a while now. Wish me luck!
Good luck, stranger! :)
It's a hard thing to get into but honestly I wish you all the best of luck 💖
Oh, interesting timing! Let me know if I can help you think through things. Based on other comments on this post, it seems like we have a couple more things in common.
(It’s 3am here, I gotta go to bed, but I’ll come back around here tomorrow.)
Good night !
Well, to tell you an abbreviated version of the story, I'm working two jobs, half time underpaid teacher and half time underpaid whatever-the-hell-I'm-doing (researcher on a health-related public org). Currently long term contracts.
Long weeks, barely hitting minimum wage, sometimes less than mw.
Ive been expecting one if these jobs to offer me a full time job.. Which they recently did. Both. But both did it in the form of 1 year contract with no guarantee for... after.
I planned to refuse them both. Income stability and the ability to make plans, even when broke, are too important to me.
My friend told me (gently) it was a mistake. That I'm sending the message that will stay even if they dont pay me well, that my unwillingness to take risks explains that i'm stuck on this position, that I could rely on unelployment payements for a year if nothing comes after one if those contacts. That it gives a bad signal to potential new employers.
I think my friend may be right but.. I dont know. It was kinda traumatic, a few years ago. I was working on 1 year contracts, one after the other. I fell sick and had quite heavy surgery. But it was 2 months before the term of my contract. I was so afraid of losing my job, getting evicted from my flat, going back to my family.. I ended up taking Ubers to go to work because I could barely walk, teaching under the effect to heavy painkillers, etc. Basically making the renewal of my contract a priority over my very health.
At that time I became very risk adverse, stability became my priority to never go through that again. But after this discussion, I'm a bit lost in thoughts, constantly wondering what I should do.
I think that episode is still too close and I'll stay in my current situation to avoid taking this kind of risks, but.. I'm still thinking. Maybe it still needs time to make it's way through my thoughts.
Sorry for the wall of text !
Hm, it’s hard to say without knowing the full picture, but I can see where your friend is coming from with this. Trying to think in those employers’ shoes, hiring you from part-time to full-time long-term would be a massive risk for them (particularly in France where we all know that breaking a C.D.I. if you start messing up would be insanely difficult). So, they’re limiting it in time to mitigate that new risk. But I can see how, in their mind, it’s a move forward in their trust for you, and it would be unreasonable in their mind not to mitigate the risk towards that extra trust.
My gut feel is: if you’re not planning to start messing up, then yeah there is additional risk for you for in a year, but it feels like a rather small risk for the reward opportunity if it works out. Also, the opportunity cost seems to be low, maybe even negative: if you stay in your current situation, then I’m guessing the next move forward to look forward to is… well, not much, right? If the alternative plan is to stay forever in this current situation, it doesn’t seem like much of a growth path forward.
I hope I’m not giving you bad advice with this, considering I don’t have the full picture.
One thing that worked out fantastically for me with uncomfortable risk over time is working on fallbacks. So, if I put a lot into plan A working, you can bet that there is a plan B I’m working on with equal fervor. And then nothing feel better than destroying all the work done towards plan B, if plan A ends up working out! But if it doesn’t… then at least you’re not out on your butt about it. So, if it fails in a year, what would you do? You may want to start making steps towards that, while staying hyper optimistic about plan A.
(Also, sometimes both plans work, and plan B ends up being surprisingly better than plan A once they both materialize. It’s rare so don’t count on it, but my point is plan B is never wasted work, and sometimes even less than it appears.)
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This was amazing to read! Thank you for sharing!