Reasons why I am here

Why hello there, audacious reader. Thank you for making it here. You are probably here because somebody recommended this to you, you are a good friend or family member of mine or somehow found me via Google. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from – everybody is welcome!

Recently, I came to the conclusion that I’m not really happy with what I’m doing. Living in Munich has made me complacent: hanging out with the same people over and over again, visiting the same establishments, having the same routines, going to the same university, living in the same apartment. Every day is the same, and that leaves me uninspired.

Now, not everything is as dire as it seems. From an objective point of view, I am actually doing pretty well and have anything but a boring life. However, I have lost the sense of purpose in the things I am doing. No matter how well you’re off objectively, in the end happiness comes from within. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, black or white, male or female – you are either happy with your life or you aren’t. Plenty of the people I have met on my travels to Africa and South America are incredibly happy – without knowing if they actually have something to eat the next day. Most people I know in developed countries are utterly unhappy and constantly complaining about everything.

I believe this paradoxon stems from two reasons:

1. Social confirmation. Most things that we do nowadays aren’t the things that we REALLY want to do – they are the things that society tells us to do. I am no exception to this. Did I really want to study management? I had no idea back then, and why I am rather content with my decision, I made the decision based upon what my friends would say. My other choices would have been nutritional sciences (“you’re never gonna make money with THAT”), geography (“certainly interesting, but only something for people who aren’t smart enough to do other things”) or psychology (“not a real science, you’re just going to be one of those who know everything better but actually are not contributing anything”). Those statements do not reflect my personal opinion, but are some that I have heard several times along the way. Nobody had anything to say against management, so I went with that.
2. It is human nature to adapt to others. That’s how our species survived for so long. All my friends get married so I should get married. All my friends work as consultants so I should become a consultant. All my friends are investing in real estate, so I should invest in real estate. I’m sure you see a pattern is. The question I asked myself – and that I also want YOU to ask YOURSELF: all my friends are doing it, but is it the right thing to do for me? Do not be afraid to do the things YOU want.
3.  The more you have, the more can go wrong. I like to call this “the iPhone paradoxon”. You certainly had this experience at one point in your life: you’re happy with your iPhone and have gotten so used to it that you started taking it for granted. All the sudden, you drop it and the screen breaks. Boy, will you be frustrated. On the other hand, if you had never had an iPhone in the first place, you would have never faced this frustrating event – thus being happier. You can apply this to basically anything in the world. During my stay in Rwanda, the location that we worked in didn’t have proper “toilets” in a European sense, but simply holes in the ground. I was concerned. Taking a dump in a hole every day for the next four weeks? Horrifying. So I went ahead and asked one of the locals if they had any “normal” toilets. He looked at me confused: “Sir, those are normal toilets. What else could a toilet look like?” Knowing that I could do better made me unhappy, whereas the local, who didn’t know better, was perfectly fine with the situation.

My unhappiness mostly came from Reason #1. I was (and still am) doing what most of my peers do. Apply for internships. Work hard for a volunteer organization. Study hard to I can get grades so I can get good internships so I can get good jobs. Nobody ever asked ME what I wanted to do. Eventually one of my friends did. That got me thinking. What have I always enjoyed in my life? What are the things that I would do 100% of the time with 100% of the effort? What are the things that I think about: HELL YEAH THIS IS AWESOME? The list is rather short (in no particular order):

• Competing hard on the lacrosse field
• Achieving personal success, however measured
• Long, deep conversations with good friends
• Traveling, meeting new people and getting to know new cultures
• Inspiring and teaching people
• Great sex with beautiful women
• Having a beer or seven with people I enjoy being around
• And finally … writing.  

I had done all these more or less in the past, except for one: writing. Which is why I am typing these lines right now. Knowing the way I work, writing will not just become a habit. You cannot adopt habits, you have to earn them. That is what I am trying to do throughout the next weeks. And this is where YOU come into play:

If you notice that I have not posted anything within the past three days, but you want to read more: LET ME KNOW. Write me an email. Text me. Call me. I don’t care, but I want your feedback. If you think all this is bullshit and I just wasted 15 minutes of your precious time – LET ME KNOW. If you are actually enjoying this – LET ME KNOW.

I will keep posting. At the very least, I will have a platform for myself to write.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate it!