The Journey From Burnout to Purpose | Kaylan Gonzalez | The Aging Games Podcast

Or were you in Gibraltar? I'm not sure if you were in the UK or Gibraltar, but what made you set off on this two-year adventure?

Oof.

I can tell you a bit of my background, how everything started, you know? Initially, I've had a very interesting career.

And when I left, um, school, I initially started, um...

I joined the, the military, so it's a Royal Gibraltar Regiment.

It was a part-time, it was a TA.

And at the same time, I also became a postman.

Um, my goals were to become...

Well, my dream was always to become a firefighter.

So I was competing against kids that had degrees in firefighting, and I wasn't very clever at school, to be honest, so I found another way around.

So I thought, "Look, if I got... work my way through the government, stepped, used steppingstone for the government, and that would be easier for me to get into the fire brigade." So as soon as I went into the, uh, military, I started doing all these different courses that could help for me to be able to add strength to my application when it came to applying as, as a firefighter.

So I was in the five years in the army, uh, three years in as a postman, and then I moved into the prison service.

So I was a, a prison, a prison officer-

Mm-hmm

... for, for two years.

And then from there I was just constantly applying to become a firefighter, which helped because I already belonged to uniform body.

I was working shifts, uh, night shifts.

Um, all my duties were in, in the government.

So I applied around four times to, to get the job, and eventually I got it.

I was around 24 when I, uh, I got the job, so it was...

I was quite young, to be honest, to, to have a high responsible, uh, job.

And to be honest, since a young age, I've always been very sens- a very sensitive kid, you know, and something which I never knew how to handle, and I never knew how to cope with it or what to do with it.

So training became, like, the only way that I knew to be able to, to, um, deal with it, honestly, you know, and, and release it, all the stress that I was picking up and absorbing.

And it got to a point where I suffered with stress, anxiety, and depression for many years through my childhood, you know? And, um, I thought that this firefighting job was gonna be, like, the optimal job that was gonna save me from all these different stresses.

And, and there's a mix also of, like, what is it that you really want and don't want, you know what I mean? And, and until you don't achieve that dream that you think that it's, like, the optimal dream, you don't start realizing all these other things that make you choose that dream, you know?