Or the whole YoLo thing was a joke anyway. However it may be, there is some truth to be found in a concept of living.
The thing is, all of my life, I’ve been in trouble. All of my life, I’ve felt pain. I’ve been searching for something I can’t explain. Okay, that where some mixed-up songtexts or something. Now for real. I’ve mostly been coping with my life. And it’s all a matter of perspective. Perspective and conditioning I’ve gathered by my family, friends, schoolmates, studies, relationships, jobs… But no matter how I look at this intrinsic problem, this still was and always will be an intrinsic problem for which no one has a matching answer. It’s always been about safety, about getting a job, about ‘doing what needs to be done’. It’s about what I should do, what I must do, what I could do. But never about what I want to do.
And it’s the wanting that’s causing all the trouble. Because if you ask me now what I really would want in life? Nothing. Zero. Empty. Null. Ask any three-year-old and it’ll come up with a legion of ideas. But me? Duuhhhmmm, dunno. I’ve lost it.
Twenty years ago it used to be drumming and everything around it. I dreamt about being on stage. I’ve even had the luck I’ve even studied music for a while. I played in some bands. I’ve sat on some stages. Sometimes it was great, sometimes it sucked. The thing I hated most was rehearsal. The thing I loved the most were the gigs. The emptiest I ever felt where the hours and days after those gigs. And that kind of got me realising it was more about adrenalin and ego than about making music. For sure, I do like drumming and music. But is that enough?
Somedays I like online poker. It’s challenging. But one day I make 7 dollars and the next I loose 6. So even if I’m decent enough of a player to are amongst the 49% who beat the game instead of the 51% who loose it, I still don’t see me making a living out of it.
I’ve had a well paying boring job in which I wouldn’t make the financial freedom either. A wake-up call there came when I calculated what I would be able to save if I would make it to the boss of my bosses boss. That was funny. Even with a drastic increase in hourly pay, I still wouldn’t cut much of the 20-year plan just because the more you earn, the more taxes you pay here. So doubling my salary wouldn’t mean bisecting my plan.
Then came along the IT challenge in which I’m still running now. Of course, now working in this field going through some complex troubles of finding my way in this new world as a 37 year old is challenging and sometimes I even think back of my boring old job, but even in those moments I still know staying in that job any longer was wrong. I needed movement in my life. And movement I got. But now it's time to stay focused on myself and to not let myself slippery-slope-back-down into staying put where I am until it's too late. Now is the time to determine if this is my field and if so, which direction I want to go with it. I can't sit and wait until someone offers me a better position or a better assignment. Surely, that might happen, but it's my personal responsibility to choose a direction here. To make choices. To set goals. And most importantly, I need to set those goals without looking at the money to be made. If I keep making decisions based on the money, a very dreadful career lies ahead of me. Sure, if I find an assignment that makes my heart jump out of my chest and it makes a more than decent pay check, why not? But I really need to stop looking at pay grades rather than challenges.
And that’s where it hit me this time. The thing is, I’ve always been conditioned into working more, working harder. But I have one hell of a problem. I can’t deal with doing-the-same-thing-for-five-days-in-a-row-for-years alternated with two days off and some holidays. And I doubt I’m the only one.
Imagine this. Imagine you, driving in a car. Not just a car, your absolute-favorite-dreamcar. The best of the best, just for you. Imagine yourself cruisin’ on the freeway (or getting some action in the jungle if you’re a 4x4 type of person). You’re enjoying. You’re having fun. Yeah! This is life!
Now imagine you driving that beauty-of-a-car eight hours a day. Five days a week. Week after week, month after month. Sure, you get your four weeks of vacation. But then you’re back in your dream car, driving endless day after endless day.
Be absolutely honest with me here. Wouldn’t you want to wreck your beloved vehicle of choice on the nearest lamp post if this was your life? I sure as hell would. And that’s the thing. I am just easily bored. I need to challenge myself. Something in me always wants to go for safety, security, ‘the right thing’, but it is killing me. Maybe this is the most important part of this life search. I’ve been looking at it the wrong way all along. I need to find a way to live a happy life, not to fit my life around a not-so-happy-job. For me it’s the other way around. Sure, I love a challenging job and it’s fine to have one, but even the most challenging job might become boring if the balance with life is off.
Now how the heck am I going to get this new insight to work out for me? How am I going to take the pressure off the money thing and start to live on my own terms and conditions?
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