M Thomas Apple Author Page

I didn’t know the term “freeta-“ (from “free arbeiter” with “arbeiter” meaning “worker” in German) until I had lived in Japan as a teaching assistant for several years. Yet it occurred to me that that was the lifestyle I had been living after undergraduate school, even during the two misguided years of my creative writing master’s degree program when I worked at a nearby mall (at a software store that told me to lie to customers about software availability).

Not working as a full time worker but at a series of temporary part-time jobs, I felt free from restraints but had little money and even less chance of anything resembling a stable work life.

When you’re 22, this doesn’t seem that bad. You think it’s okay, that your whole life is ahead of you. That you’re still finding your feet.

By 27, it’s unsettling. That’s why I made the move to Japan, to take a risk and try my hand at teaching.

What got me through the “Hard Years”?

Guinness. Probably because I simply don’t know any better. It nearly derailed me. I was a ronin, awash on the waves of life. While floating from one job to the next in Boston.

In the end, maybe it was my colleagues and students in Japan that finally got me out of my morass. After making the move here, even though on the surface it was a temporary three-year contract, I needed to help someone else. Think outside myself, outside the box. and eventually, decide to make it a permanent lifestyle.

After all, helping others really does, in the end, help yourself.