Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
During my final year of university, I was renting a room from a landlady who, after several incidents, gave me notice to vacate the room by April 1. I had indeed broken a few of her sacred rules: not to bring any friends over, not even during the day, and not to use a space heater or electric radiator to keep warm (given that she controlled the central heating with utter stinginess). At first, I protested against the decision to evict me and tried to prolong my stay as long as possible. I had grown accustomed to that little basement room where I had been able to live alone because the top bunk of the bunk bed had broken beyond repair. I had thus been living in a sort of cell which, unlike those in prisons, had two wide windows and a door to which I alone held the key. A sort of paradise of privacy at minimal cost and with minimal amenities! It goes without saying why I wouldn’t have left willingly.
Luckily for me, someone who knew me put in a good word for me with the university dorm administration. So, they found me a bed in a room on the third floor of a dormitory located on the edge of the central park, behind the student cafeteria and a 10-minute walk from the university. The room was much more spacious and had a triple-pane window, so it was bright all day long. I even had a bathroom with a shower inside. On the other hand, goodbye privacy with three other mates in the room!
Here, however, my sheer luck came into play: two of my roommates were in their final year at the acting school and worked from morning till night on their graduation performance; the third roommate was a first-year student in the philology department; since we were majoring in the same subject area, we got along well because we had things in common to talk about. Thus, it turned out that taking the leap into the unknown by leaving my old little room was a step forward, and even a beneficial thing.
Toward the end of summer, while heading to the city’s fruit and vegetable market one day, I passed by the street where my former host’s house was located. Out of habit, I glanced into the yard through the gate, which happened to be open. That’s when I noticed that the two windows of the small basement room were flanked by two smaller windows to the left, which in my day had had no glass, only iron bars. That’s when I realized that my landlady had knocked down the partition wall between the small room and the cellar and doubled or tripled the living space as part of a renovation. Thus, the woman had increased her rental income, and I was spared the impression that she had kicked me out out of dislike.
In business, it’s not about feelings, but about interests; her interests simply no longer aligned with mine after April 1 of that year. Therefore, I have no regrets and I don’t look back with nostalgia.
Transylvanity Fair 