2007: Three Weeks In
New Years bring more of a social purpose than a temporal one. The universe will continue to operate, the planets will continue to orbit the sun, and the tides will continue to wash away the shore whether we humans celebrate the New Year or not. December 31 flows seamlessly into January 1. These are just made-up days of a made-up calendar imposed upon the cycle of night-and-day, of winter-to-spring in order provide some sense to the world we live in.
But the ultimate banality of seasons does not prevent us from imbuing the passage of one year with significance. The New Year is a time for new starts; it is a time when we "reboot our system" as it were. That doesn't mean we erase the past, but we try to take into account the challenges of the previous year so that we may make the most of the 365 days to come.
For me, it was a welcome change. Two thousand six was an ambivalent year for me. It had its ups--such as finally being reunited with Andrey and having the opportunity to build a life with him. Most of the year, however, was an anxious one, spent in a state of unpleasant ambiguity.
Ambiguity came from starting from scratch in a new city--again. Since living Chattanooga after high school, I have not lived in the same place for more than three years. In the past seven years, I have lived in six different places (Artyom, Vladivostok, Chattanooga, Monterey, Chattanooga, Toronto). At some point, one just wants to put down roots, and Toronto has been a rather difficult place for us to find a sense of community.
The major down, as most will know, was my inability to secure employment in Toronto in 2006. This challenge came as a surprise to many--a bright, trilingual person with international experience and two master's degrees can't find work in a cosmopolitan financial center. Believe me, it was equally frustrating for me. I reached several emotional lows, and by the end of 2006, I was ready to throw in the towel on Toronto and Canada.
Luckily, that was exactly the time when we left Canada to spend the holidays in Tennessee. Sometimes you just gotta get out of your head, and the only way to do that is get out of your seat. Having the three weeks in Chattanooga took off some of the pressure and anxiety.
Three weeks, a lot of thought and many useful conversations with long-time friends and mentors later, we returned to Toronto, and I came up with a new plan for 2007--to reboot myself and get my life on track.
One of my first realizations was that I was not being true to myself. I had sold myself a story: just get a job in business, any job. It will be good experience, good training, good money. Moreover, since there would be few policy-related positions available in Canada, it made more sense to focus on the private sector. There was a certain logic to the story, and I tried hard to make it my story.
"The heart has its reasons that we know not of," wrote Pascal. And the sentiment continues that, all too often, reason alone has no heart. My heart was not accepting the logic of this story, primarily because it was contrary to all the choices I had made over the previous ten years. And those choices were not made lightly. They were based on the priorities I had set for myself after significant contemplation and self-reflection. All of a sudden, I was abandoning my passions, as well as the accumulated experience and training of three years in Peace Corps and three years in graduate school. All of this was in the name of putative pragmatism. It seemed the reasonable, logical thing to do.
But a round peg does not fit into a square hole, and I need to be doing the things that I went to graduate school to do. Because Canada has so little to offer me professionally, this means making a strategic change in either geography or outlook. Geographically, the most logical place for me to be is Washington, D.C. That is where the jobs are for people with my interests, whether that be in government, at a think tank, or with a non-governmental organization. More importantly, I have a well-established network of friends, as well as family, who live in D.C. Nevertheless, I am not anxious to leave Toronto--that is, to leave Andrey again.
Attitudinally, I need to look at my current situation and figure out how I can get back in the game. After spending one year in Toronto, my knowledge of my field has depreciated somewhat. Now is the time for me to build back up my familiarity of current events--which change so quickly these days. Furthermore, I must really make an effort to build up my credibility: through research, through writing and through participation in meaningful, public projects.
At the same time, we still have financial realities, especially after the winter holidays. Therefore, I will continue to do international marketing and business consulting for ANZU Technology in California. We have built up a positive working relationship over the past eight months. They seem to be satisfied with my work. After the new year, we renegotiated the terms of my work for ANZU, which make me happier to continue the relationship. The critical point here is that working part-time for ANZU will allow me the time to pursue my first goal of getting back in the Russia field. While continuing to grow as a business professional, I will also have the time and financial resources to stay engaged in international policy issues.
So that's where I am, three weeks into the New Year. I've rebooted my system so that I can look at the same situation from a different perspective. It's an ambitious resolution, but I think it's doable. Now I just have to lose thirty pounds, exercise regularly, brush up on my Japanese, correspond more regularly with dear friends, eat more healthily, read more literature, go to the opera, take in an art exhibit, and darn my socks. Then 2007 will truly be a great New Year.
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