Hi, my name is Elisabeth and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

Approximately 24 hours ago, just before I got my period, this was a dire state of affairs. I am a person with a lot of credentials which include ‘Youngest’ as part of the title. Unfortunately, by the age of 30, this title maxes out, and as I’ve found, you’re left a soulless husk with a perpetual sense of emptiness and the stark realisation that you have achieved so much as a young person with big dreams that you could not actualise on any of that potential you had demonstrated before your big 3–0.

Alas, a few days ago, I disclosed one of my new ambitions to my mother on the weekend, and in a moment of learning for me, the first thing she displayed for me was concern which I’ve now written as a sticky note on my monitor: “You shouldn’t put so much pressure on yourself to succeed. Will this make you happy and fulfilled in your heart, or will your hands just be happy because you’ve reached the top of the mountain?”

Unfortunately, my tendency to not only be an overachiever, but also to fill every vacant minute of my life with some sort of intellectual pursuit has led me here.

Yes. For no reason other than the fact that my other project would take more emotional labour (read: I would get much too emotionally involved in the topic of the dissonance of the perceptions of women’s experiences in wildland fire services), I decided to adopt this topic:

The exciting world of white papers, standards and frameworks on the role and use of AI in wildland fire management.

Don’t worry, I know that everyone and anyone is going to be mad at me for writing it. I joked to an executive the other day that an alarm goes off at Headquarters whenever I commence one of my stupid ideas or projects.

They did not correct me.

As of 24 hours ago, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life was to be in a cage. I am an over-educated and yet under-intellectually stimulated person with an abundance of mildly beneficial professional services skills, and a penchant to write much, much, much more than I actually say. To date, I’ve only met two people who have decided to write white papers and independent research projects in their spare time: the incredible leader, innovator and whom I’m very fortunate to call my colleague, Mr Paul Grant… and my dad. I’m taking a gander that it’s genetic.

That 24 hours later, the notion of not knowing what I want to do with my life is somewhat freeing. As said, I am incredibly fortunate to have had an amazing formal education, and the boredom of a Border Collie rendered to a 28 square foot apartment in Surrey Hills, and a mechanical keyboard which creates a therapeutic ‘click, clack, click’ sound at every press which massages my brain in ways I’ve never thought possible. So of course, not knowing what I want to do with my life is no longer a cage, but the manifestation of a curious and restless mind and whole heap of mildly redundant professional services and policy writing skills.

When I audit my life, it is one which is bares an abundance of excitement and novelty, and yet, to be completely honest, all I’m really yearning for at this time is this: ennui, and the wanderings of a restless mind. My mother has called my latest venture, ‘a bit too heavy, can you talk to your father about this instead?’, while colleagues have posited, ‘When was the last time you spoke to a real human?’

Alas, I’ve decided to keep a blog on my adventures. The current title of it is below. I anticipate it’ll change, once I find something as exciting as my life is:

Wildfire and AI: A strategic vision and framework on the role of artificial intelligence in wildland firefighting operations and management in Australia.

By Elisabeth Goh.

Welcome to my thoughts on it, folks.

It’s not the product, but the friends and memories we make along the way.