Zero English, and a Plane to Canada 15 Days After Graduation

Fifteen days after graduating from high school, I was on a plane to Canada. I could not speak a single word of English.

The trigger was one offhand remark from someone I respected: "Why not go study English abroad?" The moment I heard it, one thought arrived — why not, indeed. That was all. No grand plan, no stack of brochures, no careful budget. My instinct said yes, so I leapt.

At my high school, more than eighty percent of graduates went straight into work. Nobody around me had ever studied abroad; there was no senior to ask for advice. By the standard of "normal," my choice made no sense. But the choices that change a life always sit outside of normal.

Think before you leap, or leap before you think? I have always chosen the latter, for a simple reason: the day you are perfectly prepared never comes. I'll go once my English is good enough. I'll start once I've saved enough. I'll move once the timing is right. I have almost never seen anyone who said those things actually move.

Fifteen days of preparation turned out to be a gift. There was physically no time to hesitate — and worry only expands to fill the time you give it.

The way of seeing time I described in my first essay was already at work here. I decided on the version of myself who spoke English, and then carried my body to that future. At eighteen I could not have explained it, but I was doing exactly that.

Had I told myself "study English first, then go," I might still be in Shimonoseki with a grammar book open on the desk — and Nasdaq would have stayed a word on the other side of a television screen.

What waited on the far side of that leap was not glory. It was Saskatoon, a freezing prairie town, and a month of crying. That story comes next.

What are you hesitating to leap into? And — what do you work for?