In my mid twenties I returned from a long stay in the USA. Before that I’d qualified and worked as a mechanical engineer, then realised it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Although it wasn’t the career for me, I constantly look back, grateful for the foundational skills and capabilities I gained from that time. Like any choice made, even if you fail or change your mind there is always some good that comes from it.
On returning to the UK I had nowhere of my own to live or any money left in my savings. So I did what any twenty something in the 1990’s would do in that scenario, I bunked down in my mums spare room.
It was in my mums spare room that I put a PC together and started to learn about software hacks and vulnerabilities, as well as use the internet for finding like minded people. I’ve always been into computers, and with my recent move to Denmark I found the book I used to teach myself programming back in the 1980’s (see below). I’ll never willingly give it up, as this book (along with To Kill a Mocking Bird) changed my way of thinking early on in life.
Back to my mid twenties..During that time at my mums I worked as a barman in a local pub so I could have some money. After a few weeks my mum received a phone call asking if I was free to talk about a job. It turned out I had built a reputation as a local engineer who was worth employing. That same week another company called and wanted me to talk with them too. It also turned out good mechanical engineers weren’t easy to come by, I was a person in demand.
I had mixed feelings about working full time in manufacturing again, I also didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I mulled it over for a while. It would pay for more computer stuff as well as help me save towards not having to work. Plus it was better than the bar job, as it would leave my evenings free for participation in hacking communities.
So I talked to both places and chose a small startup a couple of miles down the lane from my mums house. My choice was mainly based around the fact I could mountain bike through fields to get to and from work, not on the potential for my growth and happiness (at that time I’d become used to spending up to 4 hours a day mountain biking in the woodland, and that was more important than anything else).
As with any choice based on the wrong reasons, I became unhappy. I didn’t want to be in a small manufacturing company where its impact on the world and people was minimal. With my online network growing by the day via IRC and Usenet, and seeing how I could be a part of something bigger and more exciting (dubious in legality on reflection) I decided to dump my engineering day job.
After a while, even the internet and computer work I was doing was making me unhappy. Legislation and law was changing in line with new internet activities. Distributing software cracks and testing software hacks with others, all under an internet handle only a handful of people knew was me, was becoming more risky by the day. Also my mum wasn’t keen on the telephone line being in use all evening and night while I rinsed her connection via my 56k modem.
So I looked at how I could turn over a new leaf, make a dent in the universe and satisfy my thirst for experiencing hardship before returning to do something meaningful for the rest of my life.
That’s where Nigeria came in (see an older post here for that )
Choices. We have to make them consciously and unconsciously every minute of the day. I’ve made good and bad and all have led me to who I am at this moment, including my view of the world and how I live. When I chose not to work at the small company near my mums, it felt like a small, insignificant choice. What that choice actually did was set me on a path, one that led me around the world, tested my limits and put me into the field of technology professionally, in a way that is unlikely to be achievable today.
As a society with globalised impact of business, technology and politics, our choices can sometimes be bigger than we realise and have a lasting impact around the world. It’s good to remember what can feel small can actually have long and lasting impact on us and many others. Think Trump and Brexit, neither is all bad, neither is all good.
So no matter what choices we make, big or small, they have a lasting impact, not just on ourselves, but on others too. With this, I’m starting to reflect more about current and future choices I may have. People, things, work & politics, all of them are connected in some way. For guidance and inspiration I’m using the below quote more often than not. It helps remind me of the lasting impact many of my choices may have on myself and those around me.
“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.
When you make a choice, whether it’s a political vote, someone you might hire for a job, or a person to love. Remember you can live a long life and not be alive. Avoiding not feeling alive is helping drive many of my choices, maybe it could help with yours too?