On Risk-Taking

By nature, I’m not much of a risk-taker. I have always stayed on the safer side, choosing to err on the side of caution, preferring safety and comfort.

A prompt card for my nearly-daily journalling practice recently quizzed me about the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. Did it pay off? If not, what did I learn from it? And I pondered this for a while, rifling through years upon years of me painstakingly overthinking endless outcomes for the smallest of decisions before me. Years upon years of choosing the easier path, the one more commonly known.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken is deciding to move to Hong Kong back in 2014. It was incredibly unlike me because while I’d always had vague ambitions to travel for work – didn’t that sound grown-up and girl-bossy and fun?! – I’d never given relocation a second thought. I’m a homebody. I love home and what I already know. I was inspired to try it when a former friend of mine mentioned they were imminently moving [to Hong Kong] to teach English as a second language for a year. Looking back, I can’t believe that that was one of my motivators; given they hadn’t even told me they were moving abroad until a fortnight before the case and were supposedly one of my best friends; given we’re no longer even friends.

A few weeks later, following a two-week holiday to Hong Kong with my Mum and sister, I decided to apply for just one job. Really, I was so early on in my professional career that I didn’t imagine for a second that I’d be offered an interview, never mind the job. I distinctly remember this whole period feeling like a rollercoaster rush: one minute I was in a Skype interview with my future ‘Head Of’, and the next I was handing in my notice at work, dropping the big news to all of my friends and family and giving up everything I knew to live in Hong Kong.

It was a risk for many reasons: I didn’t know how good I’d even be at the job (I was early on in my professional career!), I didn’t know whether my Cantonese would be up to scratch for me to survive or thrive while living in the New Territories and, of course, I’d only just been dating somebody for six months. And I certainly didn’t want to be known as the girl who didn’t go to Paris…

Nearly nine years later, I can say that my risk definitely paid off.

Moving to Hong Kong almost on a whim changed me immeasurably. I grew into my adult self there, learning who I was when nobody else was around. I tried my hand at solo living (and loved it) and city living (less so). I let myself try plenty of things for the first time and I pushed myself constantly, slowly, over time. I found a really great rhythm for how I liked to do things and I learned to love 24-year-old me and the life that I was building for myself. I learned so much at my job – things that I use daily now and lessons that I have woven into my career.

And, of course, I could not be luckier to have come full circle and be back in the familiarity and comfort of home. And, like the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned, I’m back dating the same person – my person. I’ve always lived by the thought that what’s for you will never pass you by and this risk proved just that.

My risk definitely paid off.