A Turning Point

A genuine turning point in my life came about seven years ago, when I failed to get into the master’s programme I had been determined to join. I’d spent a year preparing — studying for exams, writing applications — and I was so confident that I hadn’t applied anywhere else. When the rejection email arrived, I was devastated; it felt like the plan for my entire future had collapsed overnight. For a few weeks I drifted, uncertain what to do. Then a former lecturer suggested I take a temporary job at a small NGO working on water management in rural Karakalpakstan, just to gain experience while I reapplied. I accepted mainly because I had no better option. That decision changed everything. Working in villages near the former Aral Sea, I saw at first hand the consequences of environmental decisions made decades earlier — the dust storms, the health problems, the economic decline. It gave my vague academic interest in economics a concrete purpose. I realised I wanted to work on environmental policy, not the corporate finance I’d originally planned. When I reapplied the following year, I chose a completely different programme, in environmental economics, and was accepted with a scholarship. Today, I work for an international organisation on climate adaptation in Central Asia. In retrospect, the rejection I saw as a disaster was the best thing that could have happened to me. It taught me that setbacks can redirect you rather than simply block you, and that some of the most important opportunities arrive when you’re not looking for them — provided you’re open enough to take them.

Reja → muvaffaqiyatsizlik → noaniqlik → kutilmagan imkoniyat → anglash → yangi yo‘l → retrospektiv saboq (paradoks).