Why didn’t I ask you to jump in the deep end and come with me to Melbourne the last time? But if I did, it would have forced me to be someone I’m not.

– Email excerpt from a former love, Nov 2015

If he had asked, I would have jumped. I had liked him enough to have risked jumping in the deep end. But he didn’t and we ended up saying our goodbyes in 2012. I was sad for a long time after that, but time heals wounds.

So it was bizarre to have received an email from him out of the blue last November, which included the line above. Most likely he was bored when he wrote. From what I deduce from the other content in that email, he meant to say that I would have held him back in his ambitions to climb the corporate ladder because I’m not ambitious.

It was interesting to know that was what he thought of me. But he read me wrong. I’m not unambitious, but neither am I super ambitious. However, I’m not at the point of my life where I don’t want to jump higher on the career ladder. While some people are happy staying put in the same job for 20+ years (I have colleagues like that at the moment), I’m not. In fact, I’m always thinking about the next step up.

There is drive, commitment and determination in people who work their way up to the top rungs of the corporate ladder. I admire the passion and fire in such people. So contrary to that guy’s belief, I would have supported rather than hindered his ambitions.

Anyway the only jump I’m thinking of now is the next job I want to jump to when the right opportunity comes along. Not really that unambitious, huh?