Six years ago, after an intense 12 years working in politics and the media in Australia, I was burnt out and off track. Exhausted and stressed, I was neglecting family and friends, my health was suffering and I didn’t recognise the irritable person I had become. Under the weariness, there was also a niggling sense that I had veered off the path I was supposed to take. By the end of 2011, that whisper had become a drumbeat that I could no longer ignore. I just knew I was in the wrong place in my life, with the wrong people.
For years, I’d wanted to enter humanitarian or development work. Finally, in my early thirties, I had to roll the dice. I was terrified of facing myself in the mirror as an old woman and asking that tortured question, ‘What if?’ So I quit my job, rented out my Sydney apartment, and got on a plane to Jerusalem.
That decision forever changed my life and who I am. I have since lived in Palestine, Pakistan, Brussels, Nepal and Myanmar; and worked for the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, and an Australian charity. I studied my Masters in International Conflict and Security and visited post-Arab Spring Tunisia for part of my research. My experiences have already shattered my horizons so completely, I sometimes feel like I flew up to the International Space Station, rather than just overseas—my life perspective has changed that much.
I feel connected to new friends and colleagues in a way I never did before. I share their passion for wanting make the world a better place—to eradicate poverty, end child marriage, support refugees—and, like them, I’m open to the type of life change that would overwhelm many others. I deeply admire their courage in living and working in some of the most dangerous and challenging parts of the world.
Since that first departure from Sydney, I have never doubted that I found my tribe and stepped back onto my path.
Today, after years of moving between countries, cultures and contracts, I’m working for the UN in New York and enjoying some stability for a while. In a city bursting with creative minds and big ideas, I’ve finally taken another small step and started this blog—something I’ve talked about doing for years.
It’s a way to stop, reflect and filter back through the incredible people and stories I’ve come across and share them. And it’s a way for me to appreciate how far I’ve come and hopefully inspire others to also trust their intuition and step into the unknown. Because you never know where that first step will lead you.
Hit the iron bell 