I kept a detailed daily diary from 1995 to about 2013. Lately I’ve been tracking back 20 years because 2002 heralded significant changes in my life. 20 years ago today, I left one very safe and good job for another one that saw my career spiral exponentially upward.
Yet as I got the green light for my career to advance, I was naïve to the effect it would have on my life over the following 18 months to 2 years.
It's strange at this point to say that I have few if no regrets—although I still find myself regularly in a place of wondering what might have been if my ambitions weren’t granted.
Having been a tradesman and a hands-on emergency responder until my early 30s, early 2002 was the realisation of a dream when I graduated with a Bachelor of Science. I studied completely via distance education and averaged a minimum of 30 hours per week on top of my full-time job—one semester it was more like 50 hours per week.
In graduating and seeing I was more highly qualified than a lot of safety and health professionals at that time, I’d developed itchy feet, and in truth didn’t appreciate how blessed it was to be a Wesfarmers employee in the early 2000s. (There were all sorts of benefits including share options, it was very family friendly, close to home, very little travel required, and I had my $20,000 Degree studies completely reimbursed.)
But my heart hankered for better opportunities and more influence. To land a position where I oversaw health, safety, security, and environment management over a whole large State and at times into the Northern Territory and South Australia was too enticing to refuse, even if it were daunting.
On April 19, 2002, I bid farewell to a company I’d had two promotions with in not quite six years. I’d started as a fitter in the Ammonia Plant, went into maintenance planning for a time, before moving into Loss Control (health and safety management) in the fertiliser production business. I’d also become an emergency response team leader responding to fire, Hazmat, and paramedical emergencies.
Having made the move, things were really starting to take off for me, and those early days at Shell proved that the sky was the limit.
But it was also here, while my career prospects were expanding, that I came to live out the consequences of such ambition.
Besides the fact that I was using alcohol to “destress” on weekends—but that in reality I’d been doing that for 10 years—and besides the fact that I was available and constantly on call and nowhere near as available as I should have been for my then-wife and three daughters, I was also facing a major restructure and was forced to reapply for my job and simultaneously asked to apply for the national manager’s job—which would have required us to shift from Perth to Brisbane.
On the way to Melbourne airport after the interview for the national HSSE manager position I took a taxi ride that was absolutely prophetic for what would happen 7 days later.
First, a riddle:
GUESS WHO/WHAT I AM:
I am your constant companion,
I have the brain of a human, and the precision of a machine,
Half your job you might as well give to me... you only need to teach me and after only a few lessons I’ll do it for you automatically!
You can use me for your success, or you can use me for your ruin.
A warning however; you need to be FIRM with me; if you’re not, I have the power to destroy you.
WHO/WHAT AM I?
This riddle proved prophetic in my life. The Chinese taxi driver, Noel, had taken me for a ride earlier to the interview and had now picked me up again for the final leg of the day. He was nice enough, but you know, he’s a driver and I was tired, so I didn’t care much for his banter.
But he persisted, and this somehow intrigued me, particularly after he’d parroted the riddle the third time, commanding my attention, luring my curiosity. I listened again, and by virtue of this, the driver was even more intense in his rendition of it. I made a few fumbled attempts to guess it, unsuccessfully. As we arrived at the airport, he revealed the answer to the riddle: HABITS. The “who/what am I?” is habits.
Exactly one week later my world fell apart. And it all fell apart to a large degree because of my habits, my bad habits. In retrospect the warnings were there, but we rarely heed the warnings do we? ‘If only I had done something about these problems earlier’ I mused and agonised. Too late, my time was up.
As I look back 20 years, part of me wants to school that younger version of myself, but part of me also wants to say, “Buckle up,” because the hardest experiences of my life were about to commence.
The stress of performing at such a high level at a global firm with the culture of Shell Oil Company coupled with the failure of my first marriage in September 2003 was going to redirect my life.
As I spiralled into a profound season of grief in losing almost everything, entering a reawakening through the AA process, even as I was deconstructed, I emerged as someone called to pastoral ministry. Somehow, having plummeted to the loneliest place I found myself in the very safe sanctuary of the rooms of AA and then of the church.
In all of this, I learned the way of recovery, unity, and service: the tenets of AA.
RECOVERY from the ruins of marital failure and of emergent sobriety. Recovery is the practice of faith.
UNITY of brotherhood and sisterhood that in and of itself is the solution to many mental ills. Unity is the practice of love.
SERVICE in discovering that the end of self-pity is at the beginning of living for others, serving them in their time of need. Service is the practice of humility.
I would not have learned these things without giving in to ambition and failing in my first marriage. For this, I’m thankful. There is so much I would not have today if it hadn’t been for ambition and failure. Again, I’m just thankful.
If we’ve climbed the wrong ladder, or if we’ve failed, hold out hope, the best of life could just be beginning. Committing ourselves to recovery, unity, and service is pivotal.
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