I was a pretty smart kid. That's not always a good thing: with high grades come high expectations, and I spent my school days battling against teachers who said I should become a doctor or an engineer. I just wasn't interested in those careers, and what I'd been saying all my life was that I'd like to be a writer or a teacher. "That would be a waste," are the literal words that one of my teachers said to me. I ended up enrolling in an obscure mathematics degree at university as a compromise. It seemed to fall into the intellectual scientific category everyone envisaged for me, but it wasn't as clear cut as being a doctor or an engineer.

This little rebellion ended up with me working in mathematics education research roles at one of the universities in my hometown – not quite what my teachers and parents had envisaged, but prestigious enough to keep them quiet. And I still wanted to fit into expectations somehow; I guess that's why I became kind of ambitious, anxious for more. Promotions came regularly and when I applied for a staff development lecturing job in the medical faculty at the best local university, I knew it was the kind of job I shouldn't expect to get until I was closer to 40, not fresh-faced and barely 24. A dose of luck in the form of a small pool of candidates and excellent preparation meant that I aced the interview and got the job.

There I was, advising experienced doctors and dentists on how to teach their students better; being called on to give my expert opinion on curriculum issues; spending long evenings in meetings and getting in to the office by seven in the morning. And in many ways, I loved it. I'd sit in these meetings and marvel that I was allowed to take part, and feel privileged to be influencing the next generation of my state's medical practitioners. I also started work on my doctorate, proud to be taking that final academic step.

The gloss only started wearing off when I noticed how unhappy many of my highly-respected colleagues were. They were working even longer hours than me, including all weekend; some of my colleagues began having serious health problems; a few of their kids were even having behavioural problems because they never saw their parents. Was this what I could hope for in the future? Would I also end up with a healthy bank balance but a pretty miserable everyday life, full of worries and overwhelming challenges? There was a part of me that had always been trying to move away from my hometown and live abroad. My parents had instilled a love of travel in me when I was young, yet I'd resisted the urge to go backpacking as a student, always opting for the next good career opportunity instead. But this time when I saw the newspaper advertisement for an English teaching job in Japan, I couldn't resist switching on my laptop and sending off my resume.

When I resigned from my academic post after little more than a year, a crowd lined up to talk me out of it. "Why would you want to go and teach in Japan?" "Just take a holiday, come back in a month." "What about that curriculum project we have planned for next year?"

I stood my ground. I really don't know why, or how, but I did. A few months later, I was sitting on a straggly carpet floor with half a dozen five-year-old Japanese kids jumping all over me, and I was adoring every second of it. Teaching – real teaching, with real students, not the theoretical version where I gave advice from an ivory tower – really suited me. Meeting interesting people, having the feeling that I had actually made a small difference in their lives, experiencing a new culture – what wasn't there to love about it? I spent two years teaching adults and children in Japan, a year in Slovakia teaching English exam preparation classes and almost three years in Germany teaching business English, and I lost count of the times I stopped and thought, "Can you believe I get paid to do this?"

At the same time, I returned to my childhood love of writing, and started getting paid to write short articles about the many Asian and European trips I took on weekends or between teaching contracts. Turns out this came pretty easily to me to, and I felt immense satisfaction every time I picked up a magazine with my article in, or clicked on a web page and saw my byline.

After I met and married my German husband, we decided to return to Australia. My former colleagues started flooding me with emails about various job vacancies they thought might suit me. I just replied that I intended to continue teaching English to foreigners part-time and doing some part-time freelance writing. Slowly, their contact ceased, and after catching up for a drink one day, my former boss voiced the question they probably all had in mind: "When are you going to get a real job again?"

I didn't have a ready answer at the time, but this is what I'd say if she asked me again. My choice of job is not dictated by what other people say about it. The prestige of a job, the ranking of it against others, is one of the least important factors for me, and I think anyone who is happy in their job would agree. I love getting up to go to work every day. I can't believe that I get paid to do the great things I do. My salary might be a little lower, but I'm still keeping up with the mortgage comfortably, and I have a lot more time and energy to enjoy all the extra-curriculars of life too. In my twenties, I cared a lot more about what other people thought. These days, and I hope for the rest of my days, I care much more about what I think.