To the moments that pass us by.

I am at work, speaking to Paul, one of our new operators here at Michelin. He is an exceptionally good worker—perhaps the best thing that has happened to the factory since I started here, seven years ago. He asks me, why am I still here, in this factory, one that pays below the Australian average income, with the degree and background that I possess? He asks if I ever felt that I wasted my degree in Food Technology, the one I acquired over a decade ago.

Work-life balance, was my answer to the first.

No, to the second.

I tell him that even though I am not working in the food industry as my degree would have allowed, I never once felt that the degree was wasted. Knowledge is never wasted. Everything I have learned—my degree in Food Technology, my certificates in personal training, now massage—are stepping stones to something greater. Something still unknown. Something waiting for me in the future, even if I don’t see the path just yet.

He seems pleased with this response.

As for staying? I tell him that I plan to leave in the next six months. He admits he isn’t planning to stay for long either. A pang of sadness. His work ethic made everyone’s lives easier. Mine included.

Later, I think about our conversation. I look around me, at the workers I have called family for years. Some I like. Some I don’t. I look at the machines, the tires, the walls, and the conveyor belts that have become my home. One day, I will be gone. Someone else will stand here, doing what I do. And life, as it always does, will move on.

I think about the transient nature of life, how we are always moving from one place to another, how every moment—every person—every job—is fleeting.

Susie Salmon from The Lovely Bones said it beautifully:

“I was here for a moment, and then I was gone.”

There were moments in this job when everything was going perfectly, and I let myself believe that I would be here forever. That things would stay just the way they were. But nothing stays. And maybe, in a way, it’s comforting to believe that it does—even if that thought, too, is fleeting.

I have learned to ground myself in the present, to enjoy everything I have now. As I write this, I hear my mum singing in the garden. Her voice, soft, distant, warm. I close my eyes. Breathe it in. One day, it won’t be like this anymore.

And that is the way life works.

So I smile, take everything in. The present.

Because that is where happiness is found.