Sonntag, 30. Juli 2017

Relationships, or: why being alone can be the greatest thing ever

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 37 seconds




So you know how they say: "when you don't know what to write about, just start typing and don't stop." Fair enough. That's what I'll do. (Note: this whole post was written in one setting, without review or anything like that. Just words as they kept coming)

Well, today's the day of my birthday celebration. I've got plenty of friends coming, both old and new. However, I feel like these not nearly as many or as good friends as on last year's party. I may be wrong, but man, buildig a social circle is tough when you work full-time or more. 


Building a social circle vs. working full-time


Let's first back up. Rewind one year. I'm in the final push of my studies, writing my bachelor's thesis. Aside of that, I just finished leading a students' organization with roughly 100 students. Moreover, I'm playing Lacrosse in the biggest Lacrosse club of Germany, with more than 100 men and women each being members. Aside of that, I work part-time at Flixbus, which has a tremendous intern turnover, thus always bringing in new contacts. Needless to saya, getting to know people was the easiest thing in the world. 

Then, in November, I moved to Frankfurt. Wherever I had gone before, getting to know people was easy. I'm an extrovert, I'm not afraid of chatting up people and doing crazy stuff. Here, however, it was a different game. I joined a start-up. Those of you who have worked in really small startups before, know exactly that free time isn't exactly part of your daily schedule. It's hard work, but it's well worth it. The only thing is - you spend a shitton of time with very few, awesome people. 

I also joined the local Lacrosse team and chatted up some old friends from school living in the area. I started swiping on Tinder. And all the sudden I had a pretty decent network - but compared to what I had in Munich, it was still tiny. Of course, time makes everything better, but this was a different situation. Something happened to me that had never happened to me before: it was Saturday night, I wanted to go out but nobody else I knew wanted to. Going out alone? No fucking way. At least not if I don't have a favorite place. The clubs in Frankfurt are tailored towards bankers and consultants, which aren't exactly the type of people I usually hang out with. So I stayed at home and felt lonely. 

I felt miserable. Alone in the world. All my other friends are scattered across the globe - nobody was in Frankfurt. That feeling was scary. Because I had never had it before. And then I slowly began to realize ... 


Alone


All the time I had constantly surrounded myself with people, I was running away from myself. Running away from my fears, my insecurities, my true self. It's hard to think about yourself when you always have your friends around you. And yet, the time that you spend alone is the time of personal growth. So laying in bed and thinking, I decided to spend some more time alone. 

Fast forward to June 2017. I'm traveling the Dominican Republic, and I'm completely on my own. No travel companions. No friends that I was visiting. Just me against the world. I went to the beach alone, had lunch alone, spent some time on my own reading and then had dinner without anybody else to talk to. Sounds miserable? You'd think that. But instead, it was FUCKING AWESOME. I was able to think the thoughts that I wanted (or didn't want, but had to) think. To read the books I've always wanted to read. To do whatever the fuck I wanted to, even if that meant going to bed at 9pm on a Saturday night. Nobody was there to say, "duude it's Saturday, we gotta go out". And that was totally fine. 

A wise man once said "success means that you're able to sit somewhere alone not doing anything for 30 minutes". (Seriously, I just cannot find the person who said that. But I pondered that quote a lot). In June, I got a lot closer to that "success". Being alone is not about being abandoned, about being left out by your friends. No, it's what you make of it. So depending on the way you look at things, it can either be miserable or beautiful. I choose the latter. 

Being alone has many perks. For instance, I would never get my writing done if I was constantly with people. I wouldn't be able to think real deep thoughts with people around me. And I wouldn't be able to let emotions flow freely with other people around me (although that's more of a me thing, as I tend to not either have or show emotions). 

Back to Frankfurt. I moved in with two of my colleagues from the company. Now, we're more than a married couple. A married couple sees each other every day in the morning and at night, and on weekends. We spend 24/7 within 10 meters of each other. And when I say 24/7, I mean twenty-four fucking seven. Instead of going out to meet new people, we just spend time with each other. The conversations never get boring. We'll call each other when we haven't seen each other in a couple days. 

My network is totally okay. I've met plenty of awesome people here, yet it's still nowhere near the size of my Munich network. And that's totally okay. Because in the end, it's not about the quantity of the people in your life - it's about the quality of the relationships. That's something I by no means can complain about. Not even a bit. 


Relationships


I've also realized that it doesn't matter where in this world your friends are or how often you see them. Whenever we see each other, it's just like it's always been - despite not having met in more than a year. On my birthday, I received so many messages that came from the heart (and a lot that came from the Facebook reminder). I was full of thankfulness for all these awesome people in my life, all over the world. For the guys I'm living and working with, for all my boys and girls in Frankfurt, in Germany, Europe, USA, all over the world. My readers, too, as the blog has started to grow that people that I don't even know are reading it (if you're one of them - holy shit, you're fucking awesome!). 

It's about the quality of your relationships. Screw quantity. Because if you're really passionate about maintaining great relationships with people, the quantity will come automatically - or it just won't matter. Either way, you'll be happy. And then, being alone at times is totally okay. 

But now ... it's not the time to be alone. It's time to hit the supermarket to get a ton of beers. It's time to party. Maybe even building some new, great relationships. 

Thanks for reading! Would you like to receive a new blogpost in your inbox every single time it is published? Sign up here. No spam, no commercials, just quality stories as life writes them.

Also be sure to follow me on Instagram: @dominiknitsch

Got a comment, feedback, anything that'd be valuable for you and me? Let me know in the comments or through a private message on your favorite social media!

Sonntag, 23. Juli 2017

Cutlery, or: Challenge Your Assumptions

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 53 seconds

Frankfurt Airport, roughly two weeks ago. We're waiting for our flight to Rome. As we are trying to board, everything halts and we are ushered back into the terminal. A thunderstorm is coming up and holy shit, it's huge. No departure for us - yet. Out of boredom, I ask my boy Matthias to "name a topic". What do you mean, name a topic? 

"Dude, just name a topic. Anything, really." 
"OK bro. Cutlery. Why do you need that?" 
"That's the next blogpost that's coming out."

I am convinced that you can put an interesting spin on literally any topic if you're a good writer. Hence, I wanted to hone my craft doing just that. So cutlery it is. Fuck. What can you write about that? Something that's not totally boring? I don't know, man ...




Until I realized that cutlery actually is fucking awesome. Or, more specifically, the topic in itself is awesome. Let me show you why. 


Cutlery


Why do we use cutlery? I've hypothesized about different things and done some research, but I am really not convinced. Doesn't it make much more sense to eat with your hands? Upon closer investigation, you don't need cutlery to eat any dish, really. A thick steak might be hard to eat, but your teeth should be a lot stronger than the average knife. We eat burgers, fries and pizza with our hands, so why not pasta, soup and salad too? Other cultures do this as well - in India and Ethiopia it is very common to eat your food with hands, and I've heard (no citeable source though) that in Ghana, people eat soup with their hands. The purpose of making eating possible therefore is not a valid reason to use cutlery. 

In fact, cutlery hasn't been around for that long. While knives that are used to prepare food have been around for ages, forks, spoons, sporfs and whatnot (somebody on Wikipedia actually took the time to put together a list of all cutlery, which raises two questions: holy shit what do you need all this for, and is there really not a higher impact that can be generated with your time than putting together a list of fucking cutlery?) have first been mentioned in the 13th century. There, the term of the profession "cutler" first appeared in a tax declaration (quick aside here: this then is also what ex-Bears QB Jay Cutler's ancestors did for a living - guess that skill doesn't translate to football). Considering all human evolution (or at least the time homo sapiens has been around), we've basically not used cutlery at all; especially because back in the day, cutlery was reserved for the filthy wealthy. Hence, there is absolutely no reason to use cutlery, because our nutrition hasn't changed that much in the past couple hundred years. 

Let's look at another factor: hygiene. One could argue that eating with your hands you do all other kinds of funky stuff with isn't exactly hygienic. Therefore, we use cutlery. However, we're taught to wash our hands before eating. This certainly makes sense, but why wash hands if we use cutlery anyway? I believe that washing hands before eating is actually a leftover from the times when we were still eating with our hands. KInd of a strange thought, isn't it? 

Now, the usage of cutlery has become cultural etiquette by now and there are even two-day seminars on which fork and which knife to use for which course. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a market for your product - by establishing social norms that serve no visible purpose. This notion, however, is starting to change as reported by the NY Times. Some argue that eating with your hands is more natural and gives you a more intense eating experience; other say that it's good for the body to go back to your wild, stone age self. 


Challenge Your Assumptions


Whatever it is - the point here isn't whether we should use cutlery or not. This decision is up to your discretion. The point here is that we walk through our lives with countless assumptions that are never even attempted to be challenged. We use cutlery because we've always done it this way. Why? No fucking clue. This is the same in all areas of our society. I mostly observe it in our own lives and in business. 

Many companies do things a certain way because "they've always been done this way." While it certainly made sense at one point in time to do things "this way", it doesn't necessarily make sense to do it anymore. Challenge your company culture. Challenge the status quo. We at our company Linguedo do exactly that. Go to a villa in Southern France for two weeks with the whole team to work from there? Sounds crazy and a little bit weird, right? But then again, why the fuck not? We create our own reality, we create our own world. And so can you.

You're the master of your world. You're the creator of your reality. You can do things the way YOU want to do them - who says it has to be different? If that means to be weird, that's totally okay. Let the others talk. Most of the time, they'll be busy worrying about themselves anyway. Take charge of your life and challenge your assumptions about the status quo. They might turn out to be total nonsense.

And then, by all means, feel free to get yourself a nice plate of food and dig in with your hands. Who says you can't?


Thanks for reading! Would you like to receive a new blogpost in your inbox every single time it is published? Sign up here. No spam, no commercials, just quality stories as life writes them.

Also be sure to follow me on Instagram: @dominiknitsch

Got a comment, feedback, anything that'd be valuable for you and me? Let me know in the comments or through a private message on your favorite social media! The same is true if you'd like to suggest any topic for me to write about next.

Sonntag, 2. Juli 2017

Commitment: Why You Should Never Click The Maybe Button

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds




"Don't be a maybe" - every Marlboro commercial not so long ago

Cigarettes are shit. There is not a single good thing about them. They're expensive, they make you smell like an ashtray, heavily impact your athletic ability and worst of all, they kill you. To a rational mind, there is absolutely no fucking point in smoking a cigarette. Want a high? Go lift some weights. Flirt with a beautiful woman. Play an instrument.  But don't ruin your body and your wallet for the sake of being cool, getting a buzz or getting to know people - there are plenty of other ways to do that. 

That being said, I'm a big fan of cigarette commercials. More specifically, of the Marlboro commercials a while ago. Their line was "Don't be a maybe". And while they were referring to the feeling of freedom that you apparently get when you smoke, I like the overall message. You really shouldn't be a maybe. As a matter of fact, the word "maybe" should not even exist in your vocabulary. But in order to elaborate that, let me back up a little bit. 

It's summer in Frankfurt, and my birthday is coming up. Knowing me, it's not very surprising that I may or may not be throwing a rad house party (for the sake of this post, let's just assume there will be one). From my professional endeavours, I know that it's very important to plan properly a few weeks before the deadline at the very latest. As soon as you start going into firefighting mode, productivity is diminished and costs skyrocket. That's not where you wanna be. So I'm sitting here, thinking about all sorts of stuff - how much beer will we need, how many red cups do I still need to order, is our apartment actually going to be big enough to hold all the people? You know, the big questions of life. In order to get any idea how many people will be attending, I take a look at the Facebook event. What does it say?

Some people are going. Some haven't seen it yet. Some can't make it due to some legit or shady excuse - either way, I know what's up. And where is the majority? 

FUCKING. MAYBE. 

What do you mean, maybe? You might be able to make it? You just don't know yet? The event is in two days but you're not sure? To quote my Canadian lacrosse coach: "FUCK." Do you not have control over your life? Are you not able to distinguish for yourself what's important and what's not? Are you simply a playing ball of fate? I don't think so. If you were, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog. If you are, welcome to the good side of life!

It's really not hard to make or not make the commitment. In fact, it's a binary decision. Zero or one. Yes or no. There is no alternative. Either you'll be there or you won't. Sounds easy, right?

Nowadays, we live in a society where it's easy to stay uncommitted. Which makes sense, too - after all, there are a million options there. Sure, you could go to this party or that party, go to Madrid or to London, attend a lacrosse tournament or go hiking. That all sounds nice and could potentially be really awesome. It's cool to be able to do so many things. Yet in the end, without making a commitment to anything, you're falling into two traps: the paradox of choice and missing out on anticipation. 


The Paradox of Choice


"But Dom, you've been writing about that shit over and over again..." Yes, I know. I'm very aware of that, actually. I'm also not the only one - there have been plenty of scientists and authors going on and on about that topic. Here's a refresher: the more options you have, the harder it is to make a decision. The harder a decision is to make, the less likely you're going to make it. And that's how you end up not doing anything on a weekend night with thousands of options - you're simply paralyzed by the amount of information you have to process. There is only one way to get out of the paradox of choice: making a commitment. Making one decision and then sticking with it. This also includes not asking "What if?", because that question will leave you circling back and forth around that decision. 

Treat the decision as one that lies in your past and that you cannot influence. Thinking about it this way frees up a lot of mental capacity, giving you a chance to actually make some really important decision, such as "what do I want to do with my life?". 


Anticipation


Studies have shown that doing cool things makes people happy. Pretty groundbreaking, I'd say. What's more interesting: anticipation of doing these cool things makes people even happier than actually doing them. Looking forward to something is one of the most amazing things that we can do. 

I've never understood why my parents would book their vacation one year in advance. Holy shit. Who plans that far? I certainly don't. I just thought my parents were planning freaks who cannot deal with going into the unknown. But I've changed my mind: while they still may be obsessed with planning things, one thing that's even more important to them is anticipation. They love looking forward to traveling somewhere, and they also look forward to doing all these cool things that they will be doing (because they've already planned them and booked them - or, committed to them). 

Man, I'm so pumped about having that party. It's 4 weeks away. I'm also incredibly pumped about going to Thailand in November. That's gonna be so cool. And just thinking about these things makes me smile. The future holds bright things. Yet, before actually booking these flights or setting up that party, I wasn't pumped at all - it was a drag. Where should I go? Whom should I invite? Rough decisions, and after making them, I felt very relieved. And happy. 

Commitment makes you happy. And the best thing: it doesn't make just you happy, but everybody else around you too. 


Non-Commitment is a punch in the face


Yes, you've read that right. Saying "maybe" is the same as "I really don't know if you're cool enough for me, but maybe if all the other options suck, I'll spend some time with you". Would you ever say that to a friend? To a teammate? To a family member? I highly doubt it. Because it'd be highly offensive, and rightly so. 

Imagine the coolest activity you could possibly ever do. For me, one of these activities would for instance be having a few beers with my favorite author and idol, Tim Ferriss. If I had the chance to meet Tim, would I say "yeahhhh maybe I'll go?" Fuck no. I'd be all over that opportunity in an instant. I highly value this dude, therefore I am able to make a commitment. Is it the same for something that I don't really wanna do? No. And then I should have the balls to say "no, I'm not going to do that" instead of "yeah maybe I'll do that" and then backing out last minute with a "sorry I can't make it, I have other priorities". Stay firm, stay strong and say the things the way they are. 

I'm not particularly great at this, either. I sometimes back out of lacrosse practice last minute because I didn't control my day properly, got caught up in some stupid shit and then other parts of my life had to suffer. It happens to all of us. But being aware of it is the first step in the right direction. So, the next time you tell yourself that you might want to go, ask yourself plain and hard: is this what I really want? If the answer is no, say that you're not going to go or do it. And if the answer is yes, go ahead and make a commitment. It's a great feeling to have. 

--

Thanks for reading! Would you like to receive a new blogpost in your inbox every single time it is published? Sign up here. No spam, no commercials, just quality stories as life writes them.

Also be sure to follow me on Instagram: @dominiknitsch


Got a comment, feedback, anything that'd be valuable for you and me? Let me know in the comments or through a private message on your favorite social media!