The next choice

It is only when you choose between two right things that you really decide who you will become

It is Wednesday afternoon, I am in Brussels, I have just finished the most beautiful job interview in my life.

They have not taken me.

Or better, I do not yet know if they will take me, but I suspect not. They asked me a single question, a dry question, and I was not sufficiently prepared. It took several seconds for me to respond, and in the end I just managed to get them back.

The place I applied for is spectacular: light years away from what anyone like me who aspires to work for public institutions would imagine that one day they could find themselves doing. They let me leave my mobile phone on the ground floor after passing through security checks. I went up to the fifth floor, walked along a corridor made up of walls and white doors, knocked, knocked, entered, presented myself to the secretary and I was escorted to the threshold of the office of the one who could become my future boss.

When the door opened, I was breathless: there were a few desks in the Indian row topped by several monitors, colossal maps hanging on the walls, and next to the window he, a Briton with camouflage pants, a tight-knit t-shirt, and a big cup of steaming tea in his hand.

He has shaken my hand and presented himself to me. Matthew Reece is the head of the staff of the structure that from here in Brussels is responsible for planning and coordinating all the peacekeeping operations of the European Union around the world. He is just over forty years old, he speaks slowly weighing every word, every now and then he turns to look beyond the window, as far as possible. We sat at the table in front of each other. He offered me a tea. And at that point he began to explain what exactly they were looking for.

He has spoken long, uninterruptedly. Of the different theatres, of the institutional mechanisms, of the differences between the European States, of the colleagues I would have had, of the first dossiers that I would have followed for him. He told me how a mission on the ground works and he told me this phrase that I can't forget:"We never get there on time. We always arrive just in time.

I was waiting for him to ask me something, but every now and then he stopped asking me if I had questions to ask him. He wanted to be sure that I had understood correctly. I've continued all the time to think again about the answers I had prepared myself: what experiences I've had so far; what are the things I can do best; because I'm interested in this type of work. But Matthew Reece went ahead and only after half an hour, when I was convinced that he would not ask me anything, he stopped bang and said:"Can I ask you a question now?”.

I nodded, went ahead:"You, who are you?”.

I took a few seconds, swallowed, and then I started to run away. I told him about my last work, the previous one, the internships even earlier. He had the good heart to let me speak little. Wait "wait", he interrupted me. I know by heart the CV you sent me. But I didn't ask you what you did. I asked you who you are ".

Mid October 2009. Wednesday afternoon. Brussels. You expect an interesting job interview like many others. And instead you get a question so personal that you have never even thought that somebody, one day, could have done it for you really.

It took me a week to understand what he really asked me.

Who are you, who are you?", and he wanted to say," Do you know enough? Can you tell me in advance how you react in a very stressful situation? Maybe in front of a bomb that explodes a few meters from you and blows a humanitarian aid truck into the air in a secondary street of Afghanistan? And tell me again: do you know, you, what will you give your wife this afternoon when I call you because in less than an hour we will have to board a military plane and end up in some small African hell? What really matters to you? If we take you, what will we be able to count on here?”.

Questions so.

He had summed up a job to me in half an hour and at that point he had asked me a few dozen or so questions with just three words.

Not to understand whether to take me, but to understand - in fact - if I was ready myself.

You, who are you? But it meant to say,"You, did you decide who you are?