It’s tough, being born into a family of square pegs when you’re a dodecahedron-shaped hole. I guess that kind of counts as a maths analogy, which is ironic because my life’s greatest pet peeve is that all my relatives are maths people. Seriously, if there’s a single person in my family who doesn’t work in finance, maths lecturing or tax returns, I haven’t heard of them. My younger brother is adopted, and he’s still mad on calculations. I’m the English-obsessed one. Sorry, who’s supposed to be adopted here?
Naturally, I’m supposed to follow in the proud Melbourne small business accounting tradition. It’s a family favourite career, and nothing has been said as of yet, but I think Mum and Dad want me to take it over. I get it, they’re proud of helping small businesses with finance goals, or…whatever it is they do. I know vaguely from the dinner table conversations, but otherwise I don’t have much of a clue. I guess I could always get a job as copywriter for them or something, doing all their advertising. That doesn’t sound too bad. But still, I don’t want to lock myself into writing copy for tax return specialists either. I want to branch out, write books, do articles and editorials! Something with a bit more excitement!
And I understand that people who really love maths get their excitement from the calculations and finances. My parents love BAS accounting. It’s like, their favourite thing and I don’t even know what it stands for. But they love it, and I even feel a bit of vicarious love through how they talk. Still not my thing, though.
My destiny isn’t to be a respectable business tax accountant around Melbourne town, or even write for them. I need more freedom. Letters are my thing, not numbers.
-Raoul