About Rose: I grew up in Singapore, lived in Melbourne but currently call London home. I love gastronomic adventures, especially while travelling. I stated writing at 17 to remember how it all began.
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06 April 2009
monday; 12.46pm
For the most part, I've always known that everything happens for a reason, so it is with certainty when I say that I know things will be as they are meant to be. But for now, I'm unsure and ambivalent.
Three months ago, when I had one week to make a decision, I knew that it was a luxury problem i.e. I had to pick between two choices and either way, I knew it would be a great experience. I remember sitting in a room with a couple of partners at the law firm trying to talk them through why I wanted to leave for 3-6 months. I valued that they were insistent on me staying on but generous enough to realise that I wanted their thoughts on which opportunity was better.
Rightly, they advised they could not point to either but ML did tell me one thing- when making a decision like that, one that you knew would at the very least change certain things in your life quite fundamentally, you'd only know whether the decision was right after you made it. He said that it was a bit like getting married; that it was only after you said "yes" and lived your decision would you know if it was the right one. Of course I thought for a moment that he was going off on a tangent. A couple of weeks into my internship here in The Hague however, when I was talking to a fellow intern, I knew I made the right decision because I felt absolutely assured of my choice despite her scepticism when I explained to her I turned down the other offer.
But today, as I spent the better part of the morning researching on the ICC, eminent arbitrators for our choice of law projects and just the opportunities that came along with it, I found myself restless in my seat and leaning close into the computer. I read with interest about colloquiums on the redraft of the UNCITRAL Arbitral rules, the expansion of ICA in the Asia-pacific. It brought me back to how had I chosen differently some 3 months ago, I would now be at SIAC. I still know however that being at the HCCH and getting to work on the things I do now is quite literally a once in a lifetime experience . I don't believe in regrets and still think that given a chance to choose all over again, I would still find myself on that dreadful 24 hour flight to The Hague. But today, today is for wondering what could have been.
"Don't be scared of what you cannot see Your only fear is possibility Never wonder what the hell went wrong Your second chance may never come along" - pete murray, opportunity