“Just stay on for a few years and pad your bank account.”
That was the advice of my coworker 3 months into my 9-month career in yachting. She could see how much I disliked the profession. I may have complained about it as well. Well mainly that I was doing the brunt of the work 3 months in, but since I wasn’t on the big yacht (I was on the smaller sport fishes) I didn’t make as good of an income. No mind to the fact that all of June, July, and half of August the big Yacht sailed around enjoying the coastal summer towns of New England while I worked 50 hr weeks all outside in the Alabama heat. I didn’t mind that I signed on for so much work. I’m good at work. I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut when things aren’t right or fair mainly for me, but that does go for anyone as well.
I didn’t take her advice. It was good advice especially considering I loved her and the captain of that boat, and since I was a 31-year-old with a M.S. I never planned and a bank account less than stellar. I could’ve used the money to pad my bank account for sure. I wasn’t in a desirable job, but I was in a good job with benefits without any living expenses. To societal standards, I had it made. I was dumb for leaving. I felt dumb for finishing out the season.
See I had played that game. I had stayed in a career field not right for me for 12 years. Difference was I truly thought that was the future for me. I was ready to devote my life to science. After 3 months of yachting, I knew I wasn’t ready to devote myself to serving the rich and well to do. I finished the season, because well basically I’m loyal to a fault. It is very hard for me to say goodbye to an employer if I feel I owe them. Even though I know I am easily replaceable.
Nine months after I was hired, I was retired. Little did I know regardless I wouldn’t have been with that company for too long regardless. My favorite captain in yachting called me 2 weeks after I left to ask for my resume. When I told him I left, he was happy for me. He was happy for me for following my heart.
That’s the thing about people who have always been true to themselves, or well have learned with age to be true to themselves. They can easily see when someone else is doing the same thing. When someone isn’t self-sacrificing their life to please others. When someone isn’t staying at the shitty job just because the next step isn’t fully figured out.
I left yachting without a clue to what I wanted to take on next. I left behind any hope of having a career figured out. I truly stepped into the unknown. See yachting had been my next big dream career after I got the dreadful phone call that sealed my fate with marine science. After that terrible day of crying myself to sleep, I woke up the following day with a bunch of questions.
Is marine science really for me?
Why did I start down this path in the first place?
What else could I do with my passion?
That’s when sportfishing came to my mind. While yachting wasn’t sportfishing I was a Stewardess on a sportfishing boat which is pretty damn close. While everyone said this job was a pipe dream. Stews on sportfish boats are few and far between. Yet the Universe gave me exactly what I wanted. I was so stoked when I took the job, and ever so slightly disappointed 3 months later when I found myself just as miserable in my work there as I had in while finishing my M.S. I left one step closer to knowing what my career would be in this world because I had marked one more possibility off the list.
Sometimes, that’s the way life goes. Sometimes you don’t find the dream job, relationship, house, etc. when you take the risk. You just get to add to the list of things you do not want in your life. While this may seem like a failure, love is not. As long as you are risking and learning love let me tell you…you are being a lot braver than so many others staying comfortable in their unhappy. Learning is the privilege we acquire from taking the risk. Don’t belittle it or take it for granted. You are refining your life one risk at a time, and for that one day, you will be rewarded by all the things you do want because you took the time and had the patience to figure out all the things you did not want in your life. You have earned the privilege not to settle.
So keep not settling…keep risking!
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