The choice
Don't let the familiar prevent you from seeing the possible
Hey, everyone!
I got married a year into my minimum-wage job at the Library of Congress (which I've written about in my posts In the beginning... and Bob the Wasp Cleaver). Instantly, upon saying, "I do," married life swallowed my bi-weekly influx of living-in-mom's-basement money, and I realized that minimum wage wouldn't cut it anymore. Now that I was married, I didn't so much receive a salary as wave to it as it flew in and out of my account. This situation had to change.
Shortly after I married my wife, my friend Craig invited me to his house—along with my friend Kevin and a few others—to play a Japanese card game called Dai Hinmin, which means Very Poor Man. I've also heard it called Dai Fugō-Dai Hinmin, which means Very Rich Man-Very Poor Man, but I never could relate to the first bit.
The way Craig played the game was to set out a painfully uncomfortable footstool, which he found at a Spanish Inquisition estate sale, for the Very Poor Man to sit on, a great tuft of cloud candy for the Very Rich Man to sit on, and regular couch seats for everyone else. Then, we'd switch seats, depending on who won and lost each hand.
All I remember about the game is sitting on the small footstool and giving the Very Rich Man all my good cards. After all, it's hard to win a card game when all you have left in your hand after paying tribute is a rubber band and an old tooth you found under the sofa, so I spent the entire game with a stout piece of furniture performing the Red Sea miracle upon my bottom.
Mercifully, we stopped playing after a while, and Craig invited me to pluck my medieval wedgie and join the rest of humanity on his cheek-coddling couch. My wife retired to the kitchen with all the other women to be mysterious, so I took her spot.
As was the norm back then, Craig, Kevin, and I started talking about computers. I didn't own one yet, but they both did, so obviously, I had the most opinions to share on the topic.
While chatting, Craig mentioned that a global hotel chain had hired him as a consultant to build a reservation system for their newest hotel in Toyko, Japan. Craig asked if Kevin and I would like to work for him and help program the system. Of course, Kevin said yes and had his car sold, his wife packed, and his lease broken before the question mark could materialize at the end of Craig's question. On the other hand, I hedged.
What was holding me back? Yes, I wanted to go live in Japan. Yes, I wanted to write code for a living. Why was I hesitating?
I started going down the list of reasons why I shouldn't go:
I'd have to quit my tedious minimum-wage job dubbing tapes.
I'd have to leave my cinder-block, un-air-conditioned, one-bedroom solar stove.
That's it! I thought. There are just too many things keeping me here!
Even though I had made my dumb decision right then, I told Craig I'd think about it. Then, a few days later, I called him and declined his offer. Fortunately, I was married now, and my wife could bandage those gaping holes I had just blown in both feet. I've never been very flexible.
Craig and Kevin left for Tokyo a few weeks later and worked on the project together while I glued wasps to the library floor and made a thousand copies of Whirlwind by James Clavell. I nearly died of whiplash due to the speed at which my career stood still.
Kevin and Craig had a great time on the project, and the experience changed the trajectory of their lives. I've looked back on my decision countless times and been baffled that I opted not to go. It doesn't make sense.
What if I left my job with the Library of Congress to pursue this programming opportunity and utterly failed? Would I have been out anything I couldn't easily replace with a mop or a paper hat? No! It was a minimum-wage job! Was I living in the only cockroach-infested sweat lodge in town? No! So, why the resistance?
After pondering this conundrum for thirty years, I still don't know why I allowed replaceable familiarity to blind me to such great potential. Had I gone to Japan with Craig and Kevin, I may have jumpstarted my career two or three years before I eventually did.
Since this professional flop, I've made several leaps of faith during my career. I may have needed this failure to learn that taking risks is essential for growth. I want to think this wasn't the case, and I could have learned this lesson without slamming a door of opportunity in my face, but I've had blind spots in my career before.
Despite this self-inflicted setback, I'm grateful for my career. I've met many wonderful people, achieved many satisfying things, and learned incredible lessons from the least likely sources, the greatest of which is I can't wait to retire and live, at least part-time, in Japan.