Okay, so, it’s a new year. I feel like this one is going to be a good one. I think I might have a bit more time, a bit more energy, a bit more money, a bit more of … everything, maybe?
My financial situation has been sort of bad the last couple of years as I am currently working as an apprentice software developer, which at my level doesn’t pay much. I am more like an intern than a real employee, but it’s perfectly fine, because I am learning the work and in two years time I will hopefully have more freedom to work in a way that suits me.
I struggle the everyday routine of work; get up, go to work, go home, eat, go to bed. I always commute quite a few hours every day, so I really don’t have anything else in my life. It’s hard to find time to do the things I love.
A few months back I made a promise to myself to do something I love for 5 minutes every day. I failed miserably. I am either too tired, too stressed, too something. I just don’t get it done.
This year, I need things to change. I need to make more time for myself. I want to make time for myself. I want to spend more than just 5 minutes every day doing something I love. Hell, even just something I really like instead of my whole day being nothing than work with no sources of joy to look forward to.
You see, it’s not that I don’t like my work. I used to love it. It was always work for me, though, never a hobby or anything like that. I didn’t think it would be a problem. What’s wrong with having a fun job you enjoy and then going home to enjoy your hobbies? Problem is, when you don’t have time for the things that make life worth living – to me, that’s writing this blog or stories, reading, studying languages and history and things like that – then very slowly you start to not enjoy what you are actually doing, probably because it is keeping you from what makes you happy. It sucks, really. Suddenly, we loose both the things that make us happy and the joy in what we are doing.
I don’t want this year to be the same as the last couple of tough years that have taken me further and further away from the things I love.
An old friend of mine I haven’t seen for seven years visited my country last weekend and I was reminded of my university days – days filled with studying all the things I love, which happened to coincide with also being my hobbies, as well as having more energy and time to write and socialise. I felt both very old and very young as I was being reminded of my younger self. I feel like I have lost so much, even though I have gained other things, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. I still don’t really know if I made the right choices in my life – I wish from the very bottom of my soul that I had tried harder to get a job after I graduated, because even though this career is a fun and interesting, it was never a dream, never a hobby and it probably won’t ever be like that because I have realised we can’t just create a dream out of nothing.
It doesn’t mean there is no hope of happiness, only that we have to work a lot harder at figuring out how to combine our dreams with our current reality.
That is what I plan to do this year.
Wish me luck.
And everyone, I hope you had a very happy holiday season and that you may all have a wonderful new year!
