Irony

There’s so much irony in my life. I’ve become everything I thought I wouldn’t become! Which isn’t a bad thing now that I’m experiencing it, but beforehand I had a lot of opinions about people who already made the choices I have now. I judged them and placed them in certain categories. Now, it makes me realize that I should not judge people who have made choices that I know nothing about.
When I was still in university, doing my oh so cultural thing, I thought I’d start my career somewhere in the public sector, as a web-editor, something creative in the definition that I had created of the word ‘creative’ (wow, look at my word jokes….).
I never imagined that I would end up in a large company in the IT sector. I never imagined I would be a yup. I never imagined I would have a car. I never imagined I would become a house owner. And now I am or have all of the above.
And the funny thing is that I am totally okay with all these things. Moreover, I feel happy about it all.
This feeling of happiness didn’t come immediately. It took me time to adjust to the working life. My first job wasn’t my dream job….but I tried to make the best of it. I got to know great people, and a couple of them gave me advice and it is because of these people that I am where I am now.
Now, I enjoy my days. I enjoy them more compared to when I was studying and had more freedom. The freedom for me was not good, because I was not spending that time wisely doing something constructive. I feel that being in a field of work I enjoy is helping me to be more productive. It even works to the point that I enjoy doing useful things out of work too.
Is it all fantastic? No. I have my off days. I have my emotional days. I have my moments where I feel that whatever I am doing will not matter anyway. And there are still things that I feel I should do or that I should never do. I still judge. For example, at my company there are people who are making 80hour work weeks. They have a family and I’m wondering if they can spend enough time with their loved ones when they work so much. I feel like working 36-40 hours a week is enough in order to have a balanced life between work-love-play.
Then there’s the whole concept of ‘working for a company’. I feel like I cannot do that my whole career. It’s a constant fight….What am I worth? Am I getting enough salary for what I am contributing? You have to do A, B, or C for your manager or you’ll not get a raise. I cannot completely morally feel okay with this. Working for myself or with someone else would be more satisfying and honest.
I also want to travel more and for lengthier periods. I recently picked up a book ‘Vagabonding, An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel’ and this whole concept stirs something in me. I don’t feel like I’m going to throw everything away I’ve worked for, but I don’t want my life to revolve around working to pay for the house, insurances and STUFF. I want experiences to enrich my life. You can of course do that at home as well, but going abroad has some magic quality attached to it. Shaping this into a life-enriching experience seems a golden move to me. I don’t know how or when yet, but thinking about it already feels good. I’ll surely post more about this when I have read the book.
For now, I’ll keep on living the yup-life, enjoying it as much as I can. As you can imagine, coming home to the house I bought because of my own hard work feels good as well. And there’s so much irony in that because I always thought people who bought houses were crazy. It makes me smile now.