Why I Became a Copyeditor
(ten-minute read)
Lots of things have happened to me. When I was six, I found a pound under my pillow, where I’d hidden my first lost tooth. When I was eleven, a pigeon pooped on my left thumb. When I was seventeen, I won £100 on a scratch card, and two months later my mum died.
Shit happens, you learn – that’s the general pattern. But how much more could we learn if we didn’t wait? If we deliberately and actively sought shit out?
After letting shit happen to me inadvertently for nineteen-and-a-half years, that’s exactly what I did; I finally set off on my own personal advertent shit-seeking quest.
Along the way, I met people from different walks of life who had their own stories to tell. I found that in hearing them, or snippets of them, my ego became undone.
To cut a long story short, I came to the realisation that no matter how far and wide I took my search, I could never experience everything personally; I would need to find a way of learning from experiences which were not my own.
So, without further ado, my favourite lesson yet: I have learned to live vicariously. The Cambridge Dictionary definition of vicarious is: ‘Experienced as a result of watching, or listening to, or reading about the activities of other people, rather than by doing the activities yourself’.
By practising vicarious living, the potential lessons to be learned from my quest increased dramatically; now there was a doorway to lessons learned from vicarious shit too… I was pumped!
My quest was on the clock, and I soon became grateful for how travelling opened me and those I met up. We connected quickly and deeply, and questions felt invited. I was learning so much from each person and began writing bits down.
It was a rainy day in Tofino, I was sat in a delightful new bakery with a delightful new companion. We were eating warm, sugary treats and painting each other’s faces, when I first asked, "If you could only take one lesson away from all of your travels, to share with your friends and family… what would it be?” She thought for a moment and answered honestly.
Hearing her speak so candidly, so easily about the most important lesson she carried with her made me suddenly conscious of how much I could learn.
How many people hold such lessons but cannot share them with such ease?
I wanted to know what the world’s most important lessons were, the lessons that come from individual and unique experiences, experiences I could never have every one of, and here they were, ready to be shared.
So, I began asking.
I asked over 100 solo-travellers that same question before returning home. Every answer was different and insightful, every one as valuable as the last. Here are my favourite ten:
1) Fly! Spread your wings and let yourself be the main character in your life. Don't let anybody else live it for you. Be your own priority.
2) Don't plan anything; anything I've planned hasn't happened and I've enjoyed all the moments I haven't planned. You can't plan for how you'll feel in a moment that hasn't happened yet. My best moments were unplanned, and my worst were induced by expectation.
3) Change is okay.
4) You can learn something from everyone you meet.
5) All the things I end up being or doing are a result of all the other things I have done and been.
6) Do what makes you happy! I spent my life making other people happy and then I went travelling and was on my own so the only person I had to make happy was myself and I realised I'd forgotten how. Now I've learned how to be happy with me!
7) I can do more than I thought.
8) You don't have to listen to people's advice, especially when you didn’t ask for it.
9) Often happiness is a decision. Often you can choose to be happy.
10) Cliché, but life is too short. Just do it, especially if you're scared to do it.
It’s been five years since I left that bakery in Tofino, and I still think of it often. It was the springboard into my adult life — a life that I still choose every day.
How Did That Lead Me to Copyediting?
Reading the lessons on my plane journey home, I noticed how many said, ‘You can learn something from every person you meet’. Many of us know this, but choose to stay in our small ponds. We choose not to listen to the endless stream of people who are willing to share their lessons with us. Perhaps it is uncomfortable to speak to the fish from the other pond. Perhaps it is hard for them to speak to us.
How can we grow if our communication with others is so limited?
Many sorely needed lessons are held by people who don’t have the means to share them, and we cannot expect to learn from those who do not have the resources to share.
We spend much of our waking lives working, so of course I wanted my working time to be worthwhile. I wanted to be a resource. After many wrong turns, I found a job that checked all the boxes: I could make a living, I could enjoy my time at work, and I could help amplify the voices of the teachers and changemakers the world needs. This is what my work as a copyeditor is all about, and I love every second of it!