Feel for yourself and choose your direction

I have been told many times that you are never too old to get an education, and that you can take multiple educations.

I have also met people who use their age as a reason not to get an education. And then there are those who choose to stay in a profession that may be unhealthy because you have to stand by the choices you have made. What is the correct point of view?

Although I myself have not chosen to get a new education, I have chosen a completely new direction in my career when I chose to become self-employed. Since I graduated as a journalist at the age of 24, I had been an employee – both in the public and private sectors. I have been an ordinary employee and have held managerial positions.

When my family and I chose to move to Denmark for personal reasons, I had hoped that my CV would provide access to a job. The varied experiences I had gathered over 20 years did not open any doors, so I threw myself into a life as a freelancer. It was nerve-wracking, and I often ran around and had a stomach ache.

It was hard not to have a fixed monthly salary and regular colleagues that you could meet every day. I don't know how many times I considered the possibility of taking a different education. But what should I become? How would we make it fit together financially, in terms of time and in the family? A lot of considerations that made me delay a possible decision.

Instead, I focused on working and was struck by loneliness and was down with stress a couple of times – fortunately not terribly. To stabilize my everyday life and my workload, I chose to accept a part-time position as an interpreter, even though I had difficulty getting a title that did not match my skills (I can't do simultaneous interpreting at all, but I translate written materials). But that ended about a year later. I missed my profession, also the exciting and changeable life as a self-employed person.

Now, together with two others, I have started a new small online media for Greenlanders in Denmark: Tusarfik. It's hard. There's a lot of work involved. And it takes up all my time.

If I had the courage and the energy, I could have chosen to find a new direction and choose to take a new education. I admire people who have the courage to take the leap. I have great respect for last week's Inuit portrait of Qiteraq Eugenius, who chose to take new paths because he was hit by stress. He is starting a new education that makes him happy. I have great respect for those who stop and notice whether the direction they have chosen is the right one or not.

I was stubborn when I was in the process of my education and fought to graduate because I didn't want to be part of the statistics of young people who have dropped out. I use the same stubbornness to work my way through challenges, resistance and often impossible dreams. My life is often chaotic and busy. But it's my choice whether it's right or not.

I met a lot of young Greenlandic students at the career fair in Nordatlantisk Brygge this weekend. They are chasing and working for their dreams. They are making choices for themselves and the future of Greenland. Whether they make it all the way, time will tell. But I hope that each of them will notice whether the choices they have made are the right ones for themselves.

Because it is more important to have a healthy relationship with your work and career and to be happy with the choices you make. You can be replaced, but you can't replace what you lose because of your work.