What if I had remained a ski instructor?

I probably would have survived, aged as such and have had a much different life. That question was triggered when I happened to look at a photograph of my former colleagues taken last week. 

Would I still like skiing as much? Perhaps, but I might have diluted that pleasure after making it the main way of earning my living and spending countless hours repeating the same things to students and feeling trapped in that routine. 

I might have led the ski school, gotten an interesting job to balance my winter activity and perhaps got sucked into it because I could make more money that way, but I would have spent my whole life in my home culture, probably filled with deep regrets about not having followed a long established calling that was to take a shot at the world, exploring its possibilities, satisfying my curiosity and learning so many things in the process. 

My kids would be different, which goes of course against my deepest wishes, and there would be plenty missing in me. I seriously doubt that, deep inside, I’d be in the place I find myself to day. 

So, the verdict is clear and unequivocal, I can’t imagine myself be as happy as I find myself now if I had stuck around my home town and remained the person I never really liked from the get go.