Back-to-zero feels

Yesterday was my last day at work. After 3.5 years of gasoline highs (and lows), I finally call it quits with Shell. It has been an amazing chase for this dream of building an energy industry career – an opportunity that somehow helped me get things back in perspective and grow in some of the most bizarre of places in the process.

Truthfully, I had hard time coming to terms with this decision to leave. It wasn’t an easy choice to make given the value of things I needed to trade, the level of uncertainty that comes with it, and the current Situation given the pandemic; further highlighted by the fear and feeling of seemingly starting all over again. But hesitations aside, I deeply hope and feel that I am taking the better choice. Letting this other opportunity pass is just too hard, that I am surely bound to future regrets of monumental proportions should I not heed the call. 

Cliché as it is, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. In this case, an equally big end as a prelude to yet the biggest move I have to make 14 years ago since. So, thanks to Shell, for all those barrels of learnings down to this very end.

When you apply stress to a system under equilibrium, the system will find a way to restore back the equilibrium

Le Chatelier pretty much sums up the events that led to my eventual Shell exit. Things started to turn in bad taste sometime September last year when the news on my workplace’s huge transition broke, along with the underlying possibility of not keeping my position anymore. It was a Major shake-up that triggered an exhaustive search of alternate options and exploration of all possibilities within and beyond the confines of my current shell situation.

That very bomb dropped, hugely disrupted the equilibrium – the major factor prompting me to head to this direction on the other side of the equation, to regain equilibrium. 

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you will land in one of the stars

The last quarter of last year felt like I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place – my workplace in the rebuilding stage, organizational protocols all over the place, the future uncertain as it is. Right then, I could barely make a plausible move, limited by the lack of reliable knowledge to assess the situation. I just knew it was a crucial juncture to play the cards right.

In a nutshell, I needed a solid game plan – the banner plot was to keep my job of course, getting another job was a close second, and going back-to-school came in third. All along I was thinking about all these and more, while the coronavirus fear is out in the open. In an effort to keep up with the first two, I simultaneously did an avalanche of recalibrations & upskilling, constant resume updating, and rockets of external job application launching. For the latter, I silently pulled strings to reconcile with my flinched MS degree quest only to find a huge blur on that department as well due to the IATF protocols imposed in place.

Sometimes the cosmos aligns in the most fitting of ways

To recap, I was on the verge of falling prey to a microscopic enemy, with my job security under huge scrutiny. At this point, I have already pushed panic buttons here and there, resulting in partially opened doors including those I never once considered before or even knew existed. The desperation point was reached, so to speak.

Then the major plot twist happened before the year ended. It was relieving to have luckily survived the great exodus, surpassed the retrenchment typhoon, slated to keep the job I prayed hard for. Knowing I'm out of the woods, I purposely aborted all recovery plans I initially listed, save for one single exception. I just needed closure as it already cost me valuable time, a hefty sum (IELTS, school docs, etc.), and tons of effort. There was nothing more to lose but a lot to gain; the universe might have other plans after all.

Don’t let comfort eclipse bigger dreams

Earlier in January this year, I made a solid decision to take a chance and work my way around this thing called Erasmus scholarship. I squeezed in all the best aspects of my professional core into a one-page paper to prove my worth. Fair enough, I surprisingly received series of positive feedback a few weeks after – passed the initial screening & evaluation (mid-January), qualified for assessment & examination (second week of February), and ultimately scored the win (first day of March). Such developments turned out to be a good problem to think and decide on from thereon.

While my immediate goal initially was to simply survive, I ended up in a position reminiscent of a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, faced with a major crossroad. Dissecting the situation made it more apparent that I was both in a perfect and a wrong time to make the big move – having a once-in-lifetime opportunity in one hand while riding a relatively stable career train on the other. But further weighing the options exposed another layer; I may have been lurking on the safe side once more, baring the vulnerabilities when such unexpected forces came into the picture. Then I was reminded of a certain advice from a former mentor regarding the importance building strong foundations & safety nets for security when things begin to crumble, finally boiling down to this turning point of how I firmly made this hard, final decision.

Looking back, it’s funny how & why I ended up plotting and eventually pursuing such a plan so ambitious it still makes me cringe all this time; especially for someone who’s failing more than succeeding, my dark history as a student, a hard proof as it is. The same way hermit crabs undergo shredding, I guess it's worth the risk leaving shell in search for another, as innovations happen in braving unfamiliar roads rather than lurking in comfort zones. 

Necessity is the mother of all inventions

After everything, I am implored to believe that great things indeed start from as simple as a small need. I am very much aware of all these opportunities all these years yet I never for once dared to try, believing I am not cut out for it, thinking it’s way out of my league. Not until an actual need somehow called for it. To cut long story short, I eventually made this bold decision to make this move to realize – to realise rather – a life-long dream for an adventure somewhere on the other side of the 🌍