Jessica Davis | How The World Can Change Your Perspective
- Certainly more than ever the world is polarized.
- Take a look at the US. Everything is polarized, and I think that, when you are looking at such a narrow lense, you are just ignorant to all the things that are happening around you.
- If more people took the time to get on a plane or even try a different type of food, they would see that the rest of the world isn’t this big scary black hole of uncertainty.
- It’s actually incredible, and even though people don't’ look like you, don’t sound like you, or dress like you it doesnt make them any less than you.
So I think that if people were more willing to be pushed out of their comfort zone the world would be such a better place.
What you are about to hear now is a story about what the world can offer you. As soon as Jessica Davis was willing to take a leap of faith, her narrow lense was replaced. With a camera by her side she travelled around the globe and widened her perspective.
To understand this journey, we have to go back to Alexandria, Virginia, Jessica’s hometown - just outside of Washington DC in the United States.
- I was busy... busy in that I just never really stopped moving.
- I had a lot of friends so I was always trying to convince my parents to let me go to someone’s house.
- Even as a little kid I was incredibly ambitious.
- I had a really big imagination and if you go back and look through some of the old school work that I did, whether it was writing or something that was recorded, I had big, big dreams.
- And I think between the big dream and the big imagination it kind of sums up how I was as a little kid.
“I had really no idea of the outside world”
- When I was in kindergarten, I had to write down what I wanted to be, when I grew up and the very first thing that I ever wanted to be was:
An ice cream truck driver.
- It was a big goal of mine, but two years later I had the same assignment in my school. I wrote a massive list of things I wanna to do:
Moviestar
Singer
Actress
Chef
Interior designer
Marine biologist
Track star
Basketball star
Soccer player
Even though Jessica dreamed big, her perspective was limited. Small as a little bubble.
- As most kids I think I was living in a bubble.
- My friends, my family, school activities and sport. I was only focussing on the things in front of me.
- I had really no idea of the outside world.
- I didn’t even think about what was out there - I just didn’t have any concept of anything else than my own life.
But it has changed quite a bit since then.
- The very first time that I travelled outside of the US as an adult, would have been the first sort of exposure: The first change of mind.
- It was a seven day trip overseas to Ireland with my older sister. But even being there for the week I remember just looking around me and thinking this is different. This is really different from what it is to be home.
- The landscape is different, the people are different, the accent is different, the food, the culture.
- And at that moment I thought, this is something I want to continue doing. I absolutely must continue to get out of the US and see what's beyond my comfortable little world.
- So that was probably in 2012 or so, and after that I just haven’t stopped.
“I had no idea when I would feel stability again”
Immediately Jessica found a football club in Australia called Peninsula Power. Without hesitation she quitted her job, got rid of the furniture, put her things in storage and jumped on a plane and that's how it started!
- I mostly remember feeling excited.
- My personality is definitely one that when I look ahead to something, I only consider the things that are gonna go well.
- I’m not that interested in things that might be a bit of a challenge, because I’m so focused on the positives.
- As I’m choosing things to put in the suitcase versus choosing things that I’m gonna leave in the States, for me it was just exciting:
- Am I gonna need my swimsuit? Am I gonna need this and that?
- I was just feeling kind of invincible in a sense, because I had this new fire within me.
- But at the same time there was of course a part of me that was standing inside an empty apartment looking out onto the street and seeing a van full of all of my things.
- I had no idea when I would see those things again. I had no idea when I would feel stability again, but I think I put those feelings very, very deep and I was most just excited about what was to come.
- The number one thing that I wanted to have with me was…
MY CAMERA.
- I have always just been really interested in taking a second to record the memory.
- And I just knew when I was in Australia, it would be one of the most beautiful places that I ever had travelled to. I wanted to be able to record every moment of it, so that I would always have these memories that I could reflect back on.
To understand the journey she has been through, Jessica wants to show you something: Her photo album. In this album she has an infinite number of pictures, which encapsulates her memories as well as her perspective of the world.
- For me, there are... Well, I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of my time in Australia.
- Most of them are beautiful beaches, mountainscapes, pictures of my friends and pictures of the cities we were visiting.
- But the iconic moment for me in Australia was a football moment.
- It’s a picture of me after scoring a goal in the grand final in double overtime. My team obviously won that game and my arms are just straight up in the air.
“Once you leave your fear behind, you have complete freedom”
- It just looks like I have triumphed.
- That moment perfectly captured an incredible 9 months of travelling through Australia, making really incredible friends and really getting my foot back to the door of football again.
- So it was just a priceless moment.
- Australia was the first step in the right direction to redefining who I was and who I could be.
- When we are talking about pictures, I remember another one that stands out to me. I was travelling in New Zealand and decided to go bungee jumping, which was terrifying, but to me it sort of signifies so much more than just what was happening in the moment.
- Because I was taking this leap of faith to do something that I didn't really know what was going to happen, but once you leave your fear behind, you have complete freedom.
- So that was what Australia was to me.
After a fantastic time in Brisbane, Jessica was encouraged to move up to a more professional football environment. In 2018 her next destination was found: A swedish club called IK Uppsala offered her a contract. And again - without much consideration - Jessica said: Yep, book me the ticket.
- Something that was massive to me was being in a really professional environment for the first time.
- Once again I have tons and tons of photos of myself playing and the facilities there, but in Sweden I made really incredible friends.
- A part of that was because I probably was so vulnerable when I got there. I wasn’t able to understand the language and was not able to find my own way.
- I was really lucky to have girls early on, who welcomed me into their circle.
- So a few different photos pop into my head, but probably a picture of myself and my closest friend at midsummer. And it was just dreadful weather. It was pouring rain and grey all day.
- We were in rain boots and our hair was flying in our faces. We were laughing really hard, because we thought that midsummer would be this beautiful June day and we just didn’t have that.
- So to me the most important thing that came out of Sweden was my relationships.
- Despite that the first few months were so frustrating, because I was trying to navigate in this new country, this new team, new language and it was pretty tough.
- That experience helped me grow as a person.
- Navigating through the tough situations in a truly foreign country makes everything after that seems so much easier.
At the end of the season, Jessica’s plan was to travel back home. However, she was in line for a position as a bench warmer in the US, so she reached out to the coach of Glentoran FC. 15 minutes later he wrote her back and before she even had time to notice she was, yet again, getting on a plane to Northern Ireland.
- I think when I was in Belfast that was the first time I really thought I could make living overseas a more permanent thing.
- Most of my life I have sort of assumed that I will live, work and have a family in the States. But my time in Belfast really taught me that even though it’s incredibly hard to be away from friends and family... again it’s a really big world out there.
- I really just enjoy living there.
- Belfast has a lot of wonderful people. Sometimes a little rough around the edges, but that is sort of what is part of the charme.
- So one of the images that i think back on is actually not one that I took, but it is one that i had seen, i think in a facebook group.
- It’s the picture of East Belfast, which is where my club was. You can see The Oval, which was our homegrown and then you can see these big, yellow cranes, Samson and Goliath, which is the historical landmark of Belfast.
- You can see the mountains in the background, so it’s just kind of a good summary of how my time was there.
- That picture just pulls everything into one shot.
Due to Covid-19 the League of Northern Ireland got cancelled. And after months of frustration, Jessica sees a picture from FC Nordsjælland:“We are Danish cup champions”.
That day she contacted the club and 30 minutes later the head coach of the women's team called her. He told her everything about the club, and Jessica couldn’t believe her ears. The perspective of FC Nordsjælland matched perfectly with her own.
- FC Nordsjælland is an organization that thinks globally.
- Obviously because of the connections to Right to Dream-academy and Ghana. By being there the club has already expanded further than it’s comfortzone.
- Just hearing about the fact that this is a player centered club, talking about purposedriven athletes, that the academy is what drives the club and not the other way around.
- To me... That was really appealing.
- The bottom line of so many professional sports clubs are about money and I really believe that FCN is more than that.
- The amount of time and energy that they spend taking these little kids and making them not just football players, but actually full persons with a character and a purpose really inspired me.
- I also think that my move to Farum was another jump for me in the level of football. I’m not a young player anymore, so I'm putting myself into a position where I really have to fight every single day.
- I have had moments thinking why am I putting myself through this, but now that I am getting through it, I can really see the value in pushing myself again to another challenge.
- To me the image that probably speaks the most to me from my time in Denmark would be one that I took one of the first few days I was here.
- I was staying in one of the suites in Right to Dream Park and was looking on the field. The sun was up really early in the morning and was still up late at night. It was just a full day worth of shining sun…
- I remember just sitting and looking out of the window and no one was on the pitch at the time. The sun was finally set after this long day.
- I was just filled with so much gratitude, because it has been months of isolation and no football.
- Here I was in this new opportunity with so much potential.
- I remember feeling that when I took the photo, so every time I see it now, I can be brought back to that moment of just being so grateful to be here.
Jessica is looking at her album. Are these the last pictures? Definitely not. Even though it’s almost full, she knows that it has room for more. Because, as she says: The world has a lot more to offer.
- If I were to take these four images that I have told you about and show them to my younger self, I would point and say:
- “That’s you!”
- “This is the world that you're gonna see!”
- I think the eyes of my younger self would probably grow and she would have been so excited about what was to come. She would see the potential and eventually live up to that potential.
- If you open up your mind and make your lense wider, you will have much more empathy.
- That empathy comes from a sensitivity to different cultures and different world views and different opinions than your own.
- The more I dug into the world around me, the more it enriched me. It allowed me to share my experiences with you and people around me… Hopefully encourage them to do something beyond their bubble as well.
- Due to my travels I have met incredible people literally from all over the world.
- I have eaten some of the most amazing food that you can imagine. I have seen some of the most incredible structures in the world.
- I didn't know some of these things existed, before I got on the road.
- I think that if you keep open to what the path is in front of you and keep saying yes to different things, you will be amazed at what you will find out about yourself and the world at large.
- I, sadly, didn’t become an ice cream truck driver, but I learned that:
The world can offer you anything as long as you are open to it.
