I have been neglecting the blog of late due to travelling the countryside, camping, away from mobile phones, internet, TV. But now I really must get down to it. The nature of travel means one is constantly making decisions: about where to stay, when to move on, which road to take. And each decision has consequences, not only about what you do and when, but about what you don’t do, about the road down which you don’t travel.
Interestingly it’s not only the decision we take ourselves that lead us in a particular direction, but the decisions other people take about us. Think of that job interview, for example. You have prepared thoroughly, boned up on all the key areas – even identified a few intelligent questions you can pose to show you are the bright, thinking person they are looking for. You’ve honed your CV to perfection, dug out the best suit, arrived on time, plastered a smile to your face, charmed the receptionist (the one with the final say-so), and shown you are the confident people-person (with a bit of steel, of course) that they are looking for. The final interview with the board goes well. And you wait – for them to make their decision.
And what are the consequences of getting that job? Obviously, one hopes there will be a steady income for the foreseeable future. There will be the challenge of getting to know the ropes, and getting to grips with the new responsibilities – that might cause a bit of stress for the next few weeks and perhaps put a dent in your social life. You’ll try hard to make a good impression so that you sail through the interim appraisal. For a while at least, there will be a new you.
But there may be other consequences which are tangential to the new role. Think of the people you meet, the relationships you develop. These may have the most dramatic impact on your life. How many people first meet life-long friends, wives or husbands, at work? So that decision the board is about to take could have the most monumental impact on the rest of your life. But they think they’re just filling a job vacancy!
If they offer you the job, this new world opens up before you. If they reject you, that world is closed off, those people will never be met, those relationships will never be developed. All this puts me in mind of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, and has inspired my short story of the same title that will appear here soon
Write and Prosper 