Chaos theory is said to be the science of surprises and the unpredictable. It references the things that occur that are impossible to predict or control. For centuries people have tried to study, understand and label these occurrences from many different angles. Religion believes in faith, fate and divine beings, whereas science believes in “the butterfly effect”: the idea that a very small change initially can lead to significant changes elsewhere at a later time. The name stems from the example that the flap of the wings of a butterfly on one side of the world can lead to a hurricane elsewhere. The butterfly begins a course of events that eventually leads up to said hurricane. Daily we have events like this. We make decisions and actions that begin a cause of events that lead to sometimes great, sometimes terrible things. When you trace the path back you can generally find the pivotal moment, that seemed insignificant or unrelated at the time, but made all the difference to the result. This case is just one example of the butterfly effect from my life but it may also have elements of fate, the divine or just straight up perfectly aligned coincidences or stars, you be the judge.
My wings of a butterfly were the sale of the house I grow up in but no longer lived in. It was a numb feeling to find out my parents were selling the old childhood home that had created so many memories. This is where not only myself, but my friends grew up too. This was the hub. This is where our band was made and broken. This is where our skate crew hung out when we weren’t in town. This is where our family came for Christmas to play backyard cricket and try and clear the pine trees at the back. That hill at the back was where we used to go to get that sense of exploration as kids. For some reason I just never imagined that house, that shed, that basketball ring, or that driveway not being a part of my family. It took me a lot to wrap my head around, to understand why it was happening.
I had been living on Phi Phi Island for around a year when I received a phone call from my parents asking me to come home and move my stuff out of the house. They sweetened the deal by promising I could use a room as storage for my small amount of belongings if I helped them move house. I would have helped regardless, of course, but I flew home early so that we had 3 months to pack and relocate everything 17 hours drive north. My father and I were joined by two of my uncles as we drove two cars and two trailers full of our lives up the Newell Highway away from the place I called home as a child, up to a foreign place id never even heard of. For the first time in my life the word “home” no longer had a destination. There was the house we just left, the island I lived on in another country and the house my parents were about to move into. The famous quote states that “home is where the heart is”. My only problem was, I didn’t know where that was.
Upon our arrival to the new house came instant clarity as to why my folks had moved. It was a gorgeous, quaint house in a small town with a country feel. With a lake out the back and a beach out the front I immediately forgave them for selling up and moving there, however, there was a small problem that I hadn’t taken into consideration. Moving my belongings north was met with a hard realisation that I had no friends in the vicinity of this new house, so I asked myself, “how does one find friends close-by in this millennial world?” The answer was simple: Why, Tinder of course!
My quest for friends was met with scepticism and rightly so. How many people go to Tinder to just find friends? Funnily enough that is literally what I was doing. I wanted to know where people partied, where people drank and just wanted to meet a group of people I could hang out with when I came up to visit my parents. I only had 2 weeks before I went back to Phi Phi but I matched with a girl that used to work for the company I had dreamed of working for since I travelled Europe in 2014. After discussing our backgrounds she made it clear that I should apply for a job with her old workplace. I thought it was a long shot. I was under qualified in my opinion but I was confident that I had the knowledge and expertise of the location they were hiring for, after all, they were hiring for the West Islands of Thailand. Phi Phi sat right in the middle of the tour they were hiring for. Unfortunately, applications had closed a week prior but this girl was able to give me a direct email to the recruitment team to which I sent my resume immediately. I heard back within the hour. The email stated that applications had closed and they were finalising interview numbers, but if I could have a job specific application, that they provided, submitted to them by 5pm they would consider me. It was 3:30pm at the time. I was giddy, I was nervous. Surely I didn’t stand even half a chance I thought, but I had to try. Time ticked slowly that night. It was the first real job I had applied for and awaited a response from since I was 15. However, there is a big difference between a 15 year old waiting to hear from KFC and a 26 year old waiting to hear about their dream job. It was nerve racking. I’d scraped in the deadline by 30 minutes, but the next day the waiting was over. I’d been successful in achieving a group interview. I needed to be in Sydney for it on the 7th and it would span over 2 days. Problem: my flight left on the 8th to return to Phi Phi Island. The process was group interviews on the 7th followed by individual interviews on the 8th, but I couldn’t be there on the 8th. I had to be good, I had to be one of the best to get one of the first individual interviews before the first day was through otherwise it was all for nothing. Thankfully I was the second one interviewed in the individual interviews and was all done by 3pm on the 7th.
My return to Phi Phi the next day was met with mixed emotions. I was nervous but excited about this possible opportunity, I was also disappointed to find that the island I had lived on and loved, no longer felt like home either. So many of my friends had left and the feel of the island itself was less about fun and more about money. All of a sudden I began to rely on this new job to give me something to work towards and give me a reason to move on.
I still remember the moment I got the email. My friend who lived down the corridor of my building even remembers it. He described it as normal Phi Phi noise followed by a roar of exhilaration and relief. Fast, heavy footsteps leading to his door being opened by me with a broad smile, arms raised and three words “I GOT IT!” The training trip was tough, but the job is worth every tear. It has been everything I’ve dreamed of and more. I still don’t know what or who exactly to thank for getting this opportunity. The obvious people are my parents, that girl from Tinder, the recruitment team and my friends on Phi Phi for giving me the skills to succeed. Everything just fell into place.
The sale of a house I no longer lived in, put me in the tinder radius of a girl who could give me the tools, encouragement and information to apply for my dream job. From there, timing couldn’t have been more perfect in order to get an interview but the interview itself was also perfectly timed, the day before my flight. Call it fate. Tell me to thank my lucky stars. Say it’s a coincidence. Call it a miracle. Regardless of what you believe in or what you call it, it all traces back to the flap of the wings of a butterfly.
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