One thing (of many things) that I'm really grateful to my dad for is bringing us up to think of the whole world as a potential stomping-ground. He (and we) are Australians, but he was born and raised in Papua New Guinea, and when I was six we moved out of Australia and went to Fiji, and then to England, and then the UAE. When I was looking at places to go to university, I had my choices narrowed down to two countries - Canada and New Zealand, where I'd never been - before I found Victoria U in Wellington. And I don't know if I want to stay in New Zealand, but it's a great place to be right now, and I'm glad that I came here.
I guess what I'm saying is, my dad raised us to explore, to go with what feels right, even if that occasionally means jumping off a metaphorical cliff and hoping there's a mattress at the bottom. Traits tend to run in families, and we're all teachers and writers and explorers by default, which basically means that none of us have any real idea about what we want, but just looking runs us into quite enough adventure.
Some people have things they want to do from a very young age, that is their overwhelming passion and rules their life. For my mum, it was horses - she is now an excellent trainer and good dressage-rider. But those people are actually quite rare, and most people just sort of fall into things, like my dad did with journalism (and later, teaching journalism - see, I told you!). My sister and brother and I are all focused vaguely on writing and story-telling; my sister is a sometime-playwrite, my brother has gotten very involved in the technical side of theatre, and I'm persuing film-making at university, but all of that can change; priorities can shift, we know. I guess what I took away from all this was: do what you love if you know what it is, and if you don't, keep looking until you stumble over it; you're sure to have picked up a bunch of amazing stuff in the meantime.
Wow, that was long and rambly. I'm sorry; I hope that was remotely helpful.
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I guess what I'm saying is, my dad raised us to explore, to go with what feels right, even if that occasionally means jumping off a metaphorical cliff and hoping there's a mattress at the bottom. Traits tend to run in families, and we're all teachers and writers and explorers by default, which basically means that none of us have any real idea about what we want, but just looking runs us into quite enough adventure.
Some people have things they want to do from a very young age, that is their overwhelming passion and rules their life. For my mum, it was horses - she is now an excellent trainer and good dressage-rider. But those people are actually quite rare, and most people just sort of fall into things, like my dad did with journalism (and later, teaching journalism - see, I told you!). My sister and brother and I are all focused vaguely on writing and story-telling; my sister is a sometime-playwrite, my brother has gotten very involved in the technical side of theatre, and I'm persuing film-making at university, but all of that can change; priorities can shift, we know. I guess what I took away from all this was: do what you love if you know what it is, and if you don't, keep looking until you stumble over it; you're sure to have picked up a bunch of amazing stuff in the meantime.
Wow, that was long and rambly. I'm sorry; I hope that was remotely helpful.