I’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions in my life. Like most people, I’ve been confronted with situations where I have had to take a really difficult decision and haven’t known whether it was the correct one or not until later. That’s sometimes what makes the decision difficult.
One such decision was when I was offered a job that meant moving away, again. I’d already moved away from London and where I’d grown up a few times. To Cardiff and Brighton for university and Newcastle for work. I regretted none of them, loved all of them. But I had been in two minds about applying for the job in the first place. I’d done so because the money was great, the job itself was interesting, my contract was ending in a few months, and it was in an area of the country that I do love. There was just this niggling question in the back of my mind – did I really want to move away again? Leave friends and family and the life I had built? I truly wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t single, I was in a relationship but I didn’t want staying to be about the person I was with because I didn’t think the relationship had that kind of future. I was encouraged to apply, and I think I felt flattered by that. So, I did. I told myself that if I got to the stage in the process where I had to go to Bath for the main interview process, I would decide how I felt when I was there. I got to that stage, on the back of some really strong and positive feedback on my initial interview. I remember driving to Bath still feeling conflicted, but there seemed to be a lot of references to Bath on the radio as I drove and on the morning of the interview, there was a whole news item about the place on the BBC. It felt like a sign. But, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable when I was there. I knew I loved the place, I’d visited before. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to live there.
At this point in my life, I had not had a spiritual awakening at all. I was completely ego-led but I think my soul was screaming so loudly at me that this wasn’t the right move I couldn’t avoid hearing it despite being completely in my ego. I am, though, intensely competitive and if I go for something like this I commit. I did my research, I did a killer presentation for the final interview and I put myself out there when we had to meet the stakeholders and politicians as part of the process. It was all very intense and ended with me being offered the job on the same day for a ridiculous amount of money. By far the best salary I’d been offered at that point in my career. It was a huge promotion, really. And for a moment I was on cloud nine. I’d beaten the opposition, I’d come out on top.
I remember it was a Friday afternoon that I was offered the job, actually on my way to a bar with my then boyfriend. We celebrated, and he was genuinely pleased for me. As I say, the relationship didn’t have a forever future written into it but he was a good man and we had a good time. We’d been together about a year by then, I think, and had spoken vaguely about possibly moving in together. I’m not sure either of us really meant it when we had those discussions, but being offered a job in Bath, the other side of the country to where we were, brought everything into sharp focus. Because we weren’t sure we would really be able to keep an indefinite long-term relationship going. His job as a teacher was firmly in London because of all the things he was involved in including being part of a very influential taskforce. Understandably, he didn’t want to upsticks and move to Bath.
For me, I wasn’t sure I wanted to start over again. I’d done that in Newcastle and it wasn’t easy. I thought about all of it long and hard, all weekend. And on the Monday I went to see my boss and informally told him I had been offered the job in Bath. One of the reasons I had applied was because in the job I’d been in, I was on a contract and that was getting to its end date. My boss was pleased for me, but admitted that the organisation did not want to lose me and had earmarked me for a new position they were creating. It was all early days, though, and might not come to fruition before the end of my resignation period. And it had not yet been signed off by the Board. So, I had a choice. Either take the Bath job and all the attendant risks associated with that, or I could hold on where I was working and hope that the job they were seeking to create came off. Financially, I would be better off if I held out for the job compared with Bath and I would also get to remain amongst my friends and family, in my home, and no long-distance relationship. But there was a chance the Board didn’t approve the creation of the job. It was tough.
I wrangled with the decision. The headhunter for the Bath job was very strident and insistent, hammering home to me just how wonderful the Bath job was, how much the Chief Executive and politicians wanted me to join them, and that there was great career progression. All of the positives that I was very aware of. On the other hand, there was the Chief Executive of the organisation I was working for and my boss reassuring me that whatever happened, I had a place in the organisation because they wanted to retain my skills and experience. It also felt as though my boyfriend was upping the ante as well. The following weekend we toured around London, stopping off in all sorts of great places we knew and enjoyed, having a brilliant time. His killer line was ‘it won’t be easy to do this at the drop of a hat if you decide to move to Bath’ which wasn’t strictly true. What he meant was, our relationship probably wouldn’t survive the long distance element which he never said but was always there between us. My parents never said anything, but my friends were keen for me to stay.
In the end, I decided to take the chance on the organisation I already worked for and turned down the Bath job. Every now and then I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone to Bath, but I don’t regret the decision. My relationship didn’t last, it went on for almost another year but neither of us was especially keen to take the next step and it didn’t seem there was much point in carrying on, and we went our separate ways. The main reason I don’t regret my decision, however, is the fact that about three years after this happened I was diagnosed with cancer. I think the cancer would have still happened, but would have been infinitely more difficult had it happened while I was in Bath with no real support network. And I think the job would have been incredibly difficult to do without the support network. I realised that when I did a similar job near where I lived (after I left the organisation I rejected Bath for) and drew a lot on that support network.
As I said to a friend the other day, it was a sliding doors moment. If I’d gone down the Bath route, my life would have gone down one road but I am clear now it would have been a road my soul did not want to go down. When I think about my reaction to certain things, I remember feeling an intense resistance that at the time I didn’t understand. Making the decision to stay where I was, was initially difficult because there were many pros and cons to both. And I wanted to make the decision for the right reasons.
This was not the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. It’s the one I felt I wanted to write about, though, the others I don’t want to so much. That said, it was still difficult and ultimately, it was the right decision.
Louisa Simpson 