Connecting the threads
I had lunch with a friend today and asked her my favorite question: What’s your story?
I love this question because I learn so much about someone, not just learning about them and how they became or ended up where they are today, but also learning about them — what in their story that they choose to focus on or deliberately, or subconsciously, choose to omit.
But today’s conversation posed another interesting angle: What are the things that led you to where you are today? My friend reflected on how her life as it is now is only because of a series of last minute micro-decisions over time ended up being a series of (last minute) pivotal decisions that built up over time, leading her to here, in Australia, almost 10,000 miles from where she originally called home and 10,000 miles away from the life she had originally planned for herself, but exactly where she needed to be, now.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s only with the wisdom of today are we able to look back and see the pattern over time, but this made me think about my own journey. How have I ended up here today? What is my pattern that leads me to where I need to go?
When I look back on my life so far, the most pivotal decisions haven’t been last minute ones. Rather my pattern (from the limited experience so far) has been having an interest or dream and thinking about it for a while (usually many years) and having it build up over time, taking up more space and front space in my brain until it’s so present in my brain that I go do something about it. It was like that with my decision to join the Deloitte Greenhouse (pursuing my interest in human-centred strategy), to work at Flatiron Health (chasing my desire to work in tech and at a start-up and at a purpose-driven company), to take a career break (fulfilling a dream to hike and travel the world), and to move to Australia (I’ve felt a slight pull to Sydney over the past two years, and I’ve always wanted to live abroad). In recognizing this pattern, it makes me wonder: Just what is next? Maybe, just maybe, there is something wonderful, right around the corner.