Quarter-life crisis

Recently I twisted my knee for the 4th time. Again I’m recovering and an operation will follow. This became a very time consuming aspect of life and I know that I will be fully recovered in 6 months from now. This made me realize that life can take control of you instead of focusing on your own achievements. So I took the time to understand fully some decisions I have made.

I want to understand again what I’m passionate about and if my life is heading in the right direction. By being positive, creative and happy till the degree to which eliminates negative emotions you can achieve many things. That is why I feel blessed that my life currently is so rich of experiences already while I’m only 26.

I dream big and dream a lot. But dreams stay dreams when you think about “can I” instead of “will I”. Is my life heading into the direction I want to be in when I’m 30? Can I continue living as I do now or is it time to take more control of grathe direction I'm going?

Mentor of my own laziness

“The love of comfort is the enemy of greatness. It is the struggle in life that gives it meaning. Let this be my story explaining my struggle. Let I be my mentor of my own laziness and push me to things I’m currently not even able to think of while writing this. “

Youth passes quickly

When you’re younger, life is almost predefined. You go to school, decide in which direction you want to qualify yourself and go to college. You have an easy job that gives you pocket money and spend hours, day’s months and years with your friends. At a point I wanted to give this time more meaning and we started side projects next to college and my first job. This helped me to find that element in life that would satisfy me. Be independent, driven and creative. I applied this additional knowledge into my day-to-day work and because of this I got a job offer to move over from Amsterdam to London. I accepted this with 2 hands to continue my journey finding and improving my quality of life internationally.

Location

Because of the new environment I was in I let go the side projects I was working on. The social aspect in life became more important to me. In the weekends I was exploring the city and making new close friends. I experienced great moments that I feel grateful for that they were part of my life. At the same time became work a task instead of a passion, which I needed to complete to continue living my social life. My career became company driven instead of creating and following up my personal development plan. All this happened because of my leakage of focus on my career. The good, comfortable but expensive life London has to offer, distracted me too easily.

Become more mature

2 years London passed quickly and that is why I decided to make a change in 2013. I started to think more mature and wanted to find the right balance of things in life that helps me to make me happy. People say I made good progress already, but my future isn’t in the past. I have learned that you can’t always get what you want but when you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.

Know what I stand for

I have decided that I need to grow certain skills that will lead me to the direction I want to be in at my 30ies. This is in line with having long-term goals instead of spending my spare hours in the pubs and clubs of London. I realized that the people I’m inspired with became close friends by being themselves and that I enjoyed the process of getting to know them. My ongoing process of searching to improve my quality of life didn’t give me the feeling that I had defined where I stand for. That is why I decided to step closer to my personality instead of accepting everything I’m surrounded with. My recap of making decisions is now based on assume nothing, do more, need less, smile often, dream big, laugh a lot and realize more often how blessed I am. If someone wants to be part of my life they will make an effort to be in it. So I can make deliberately decisions of how I spend my valuable time.

Epilogue

When you enjoy life you have many reasons why you get out of bed every morning. My twisted knee injury gave me the time to rethink my life decisions and set goals for my future life. I know what I need to learn, I know what my focus points are and it’s time to act.

Enjoy, challenge and stay fresh by keeping your life experiences and adventures making you smile, fit and happy.