Disclaimer: The following post is relatively scattered and self-indulgent, but I’ve been feeling completely off my game and I need this, so go easy on me. If you dare read on, you’ll find a hodgepodge of life issues and mid-life angst, and it goes on for a while. To be honest, I really don’t expect any of you to make it to the end;-) Regardless, it’s high time for me to regroup….
Once you find your calling, what do you do with it?
The simple answer: Commit to it. Master it. Enjoy it.
OK, well that’s all fine and comprehensible if your calling is to the arts or athletics, but what if your calling is something less tangible like, say, motivating and bringing people together? Do you canvass the landscape for opportunities to assemble like-minded individuals around a common ’cause,’ whatever it may be? Do you force your passion for, say, education back into the equation, or allow your direction to emerge more organically from circumstances, perhaps after your long-anticipated return to the motherland?
(Note: Officially throwing in the towel on the shoddy attempt at a 3rd person narrative.)
I find that my aspirations have become more and more abstract just when I need them to be more concrete. I’ve also found myself more entrenched in the world of language education with each passing month, and my reasons for resisting a permanent career in Japan are increasingly unclear, even to me.
After a little soul-searching, I’ve come to a few important realizations that are pulling me in the direction of committing to a longer stay in Japan:
1. I want my children to spend at least an equal number of years outside the U.S. during their childhood.
Here’s why: Children with heavy doses of international experience are, for the most part, much more open to the actual diversity in customs and modes of communication that exist in the world. Besides, being completely bilingual and bicultural is a lot less work for children who have the opportunity to straddle their roots in two countries.
2. Going back home just to prove to myself that I can is a silly pursuit no matter how you slice the pie.
The old-timer expats in Japan will all tell you that 7 years is the monumental cutoff. After 7 years, the prospect of returning to your home country becomes less realistic and starts to make a lot less sense. (FYI–I crossed the 7-year mark last summer.) First off, I hate to accept that there’s anything I can’t do (besides maybe being able to slip into a pair of size 34 jeans, I’ve learned to be cool with that now, but I digress….). I have to admit that the bull-head in me simply can’t stomach the idea of surrendering to the predictions of all those friends and relatives who saw it coming, nor can the non-determinist in me easily succumb to the allure of the magical, mystical force of the 7-year law of expat naturalization. Thus, my knee-jerk reaction is to say, ‘Nah, not me homey. I’m goin’ back just like I said I would. After all, I loves me a good challenge.’
The devil’s advocate: And at the same time, in the midst of all this calculating and contemplating, I can’t ignore the possibility that remaining in Japan might be following the path of least resistance.
Response: But when I ask myself honestly whether I am afraid to relocate to the states, or afraid to make a career change, I can answer without hesitation: No, absolutely not. In fact, in many ways, going back home and working my way up the ladder–be it in a grad program, an established corporation or a non-profit–would be among the most stable and predictable scenarios I can imagine. Ladder-climbing in the USA….there’s a game I know well. It defined my social identity through secondary school and nearly kept me from pursuing a career in education.
3. Without consciously planning to do so, I have made substantial progress toward a multi-tiered community building project that has its roots firmly set in the asian-based language education context.
I suppose it’s always difficult to bring an important chapter of your life to a close, but I’m getting strong signs that I’m actually onto something here. From all that I can gather, this recent pattern of consistent synergy-induced results is nothing to throw to the wayside without careful consideration. In many areas–including my school–, the soup is just beginning to thicken. If I walk away from it all in the near future, many worthwhile projects are likely to go unfinished, and that would be a crying shame.
4. (related to 3.) I have found that it is far easier for me to navigate through this sub-culture (language educators in Asia) than it is for most.
I can only guess that this is owing to my asian complexion, perhaps helped along by the fact that I have no obvious career agenda (e.g resume building, product sales, etc.) at stake in most of my activities, so my participation is generally taken at face value, and welcomed by all. Furthermore, on an international level, my uber-culturally-diverse upbringing comes in pretty handy when interacting with teacher association reps from other countries. I quite commonly find myself mediating strained communications between reps from clashing cultures.
5. And finally, I am less and less certain that I want to live in the U.S. full-time. Don’t get me wrong. I have a hard time going more than 6 months without a trip back to California to visit family and friends. I’m just not so convinced that I have much more important work to achieve there than I do right here in Japan. And with kids of my own coming into the world, issues like crime rate and food culture are beginning to receive greater consideration.
Sound like a done deal? Not so fast…..
Here’s where it all gets disjointed and confusing:
Complication #1: Despite my immense passion for education, my skill set is dominated largely by leadership instincts and management experience.
(Unrelated) Complication #2: While there are projects in language education that stretch my abilities, I’m not sure that I have a long-term commitment to the mission of EFL–I.e. bringing English education to foreign students.
Another (unrelated) consideration: If it’s all the same to everyone else, I’d rather not base my entire career around an industry that I just happened to fall into due to the ease of obtaining a working visa in Japan.
And another: My achievements thus far in the business arena are much more clearly recognized and respected overseas, so diving deeper into the world of EFL can be a career-defining move (read: painting myself into a (very Japanese, or Asian anyway) corner).
The upshot/silver lining: Luckily, I know this about myself: I love to tackle the tough issues, so the last place I want to end up is making clutch decisions to maximize the PR potential and bottom line for a company with anything less than earth-shaking objectives. Wherever I end up–and it doesn’t matter where– I need to be doing work that moves my soul.
So where are we? Ah yes, we’ve come full circle. Whereever you hang your hat’s your home, eh? Is it really true that any ol’ place will do?
If you’ve made it this far, you are clearly a glutton for punishment, so here’s some more background to sate your appetite:
A series of incidental rather than deliberate events has consistently prolonged my stay in Japan since 2000. What started out as a brief stint working at a start-up language school while honing my Japanese skills has turned into a (minimum) 10 year commitment. When I decided to stop working for my then employer, I considered returning to the states, but I wanted to give my relationship with my then girlfriend time to either mature or fizzle. Throughout the maturing process, and into our life as newlyweds, I have always maintained that I’d be back in the states in 3-5 years. Somehow, however, that number has never decreased as the years go by! Fortunately, I have had the wherewithal to continue challenging myself with new projects and responsibilities–in both profitable and NPO arenas–so I don’t feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels. On the contrary, I’m having a hard time imagining leaving all of this behind. When I’m back in LA, my buddy Chris likes to introduce me as his ‘friend Steve from Japan,’ followed quickly by ‘he’s the pillar of his community.’ It was always good for a laugh, because it was such a farce. Now it’s becoming frighteningly realistic, and just when I am itching to make a move.
What’s becoming a farce is that I still think in terms of how best to stage my exit from Japan and my corresponding career change. The English Masters project is going very well as student recruitment continues to improve and our reputation in the local community is soaring. Here’s the catch: for word of mouth to have legs in this industry, it’s best to have a figure-head. I don’t mind being that guy, but it seriously inhibits my mobility. To a large extent, when a pillar of the community moves, the community collapses in its place.
It’s difficult to explain, but all the schmoozing and networking pomp and circumstance that would make my stomach turn back home is surprisingly bearable as an expat. In fact, becoming a pillar of my community here in Japan is a major part of the goal. What’s more, it needs to happen for me to achieve the level of freedom and mobility I’ll need to tackle some (larger scale) international community building projects.
When I was in high school and college, my dad always told me: “Just focus on being the best at whatever you do and everything else will fall into place.” I suppose that was what I needed to hear back then in order to keep things simple and stay on track, but I’m finding that there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Closing in on the elusive ‘being the best at what you do’ does not narrow the options at all. In fact, it provokes increasingly attractive projects and potential collaborators from a variety of fields.
“Be a leader in your field. Be a pillar in your community. Small though your contribution may be, leave a legacy. It’s not important whether people actually remember your name after you’re gone. What matters is that you carried with you something that was once wrong with the world.” These are all tenets that have guided my career decisions in the past. I will stick by them, but I also need some help with narrowing the scope of my endeavors.
And finally, a parting comment: Dad was always sure that I’d end up a politician. I told him he must be crazy. When I take an honest look at where my career is headed, though, I’m not so sure he was wrong….;-)
Technorati Tags: career, japan, perspective, personal, life-coach, education, efl, community, rants
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