It’s a whole new year, 365 days.
What is
going to happen? I am really excited because this year there are so many
uncertainties, perhaps more then ever before. I kind of feel like I am in the
middle of a gripping series and this year is the end of an episode with a
multiple choice ending for the next one.
Last
year was a big year for me, certainly a year of change and movement. For one I
moved from Serbia to Austria, and also moved a lot imbetween, for most of the
year I was travelling back and forth, one month here and one month there. If
you had told me one year ago that everything would be the way it is and that I
would have actually moved from Serbia, I think I would have had a hard time
believing it. The other day I tried to remember every place I stayed in,
actually I tried to remember all the places I had woken up in this last year. I really struggled to bring to mind all the places I had been. Without the help and flexibility of many
wonderful friends, I would for sure have been homeless many times. To mention a
few people who gave me a place to crash.. sometimes for more then a few days I
have to thank Kristalina, Magda (the two sweetest sisters in the world), Sarah
(a lovely American), Tanja (this girl....),Hagob and Nata, Ciss (the hot one), Jakob (personal
trainer), and finally Sofia (for really giving me her room in Graz), Malene,
and Martin (my now awesome roommates).
With every change comes a bit of commotion,
and in my case hardship. It was for sure the year with one of the biggest
depressions I ever had and with strong feelings of pressure. In particular I
have to remember around the time from May-July when I really did not know what
was happening with Culture Exchange in Serbia. The weight of the whole business
and the decision of whether to keep it or close it felt absolutely huge. I
could not sleep at night and when I did I would wake up with a feeling of panic
almost every morning, I felt like such a failure and like everything was
crashing in on me. I also felt totally disconnected with myself, as I was under
so much stress that I felt I had no worth as a person, that I was such a loser.
During this time when I was feeling this
way, I wrote a diary to remember how it was, here is a short excerpt JUNE 22 ‘I
can’t sleep, I wake up early in the morning with worries crowding my mind. I
fear so much and feel so small. I don’t know how to write down these feelings,
but I want to, I want to remember this time. I just feel like I am so far
behind, I cannot even take care of myself. Why? Why am I this way, what is the
purpose of my existence? Why am I the way I am? Its such a lonely moment, but
I feel so disoriented, so lost. How will anyone ever love me’
Now when I re-read that I feel like, wow
how could I ever have written that, this is one reason why I like to record my
thoughts and feelings, to see sometimes how absolutely crazy it is that we get
into such a negative thought pattern about ourselves. How can we allow
ourselves to believe that we are worthless or unlovable? But sometimes it
happens, and when it does its good to remember that this is not the whole story
of your life, but just a difficult part. I know that I had so many pressures
and stress at this time and that it really brought me to a very low place, but
I also can see how all of that pushed me to grow and I am far away from that
place today, but I had to go through it. It’s actually a bit emotional for me
to look back and see how bad I felt and how strong those hard emotions were. I
am a very emotional person and I think I will always feel things vividly and
with great intensity. I kind of feel like I live in a very dramatic way, when I
am good, or when I feel happy, I feel it very strongly, I feel moved by the
beauty in the world around me, but when I swing to the other extreme I also
feel negative emotions very hard. All of this is who I am and I am thankful for
it.
Why am I talking so much about depression and hardship? Because it was a
big part of last year for me. The decision to move to Graz and to let Danny and
Lani take over our CE in Novi Sad changed my life path and pushed me out into a
whole new world of experiences and also some really tough moments. I remember
at one point I was like… its getting so bad, its got to get better eventually. I
knew that there had to be a turning point and that things were going to change.
Change they did and in a wonderful way, in August a friend invited me to live
at his place (because my house in Serbia got closed down, I was penniless and
got cheated from all my savings… ). This friend really helped to give me some
confidence in myself again. For one he started training me physically and
teaching me about building body strength. He had been doing this for a
profession before and really knew how to instruct and teach. I told him about
my dream to one day do competitive cycling and he believed that I could do it.
At this point I had been working so much that I hardly had time at all to work
out or train. Jakob (my friend) made a big impact because of his interest in
improving my life and helping me to be stronger.. because of this I got happier
almost right away. It also gave me a personal goal to work towards that was not
all about CE and business (which basically my whole life for the last 4 years
has been about). It was still hard to train myself when I had a lot of work to
do, but this gave me a lot of energy and I would get up early to train before
getting to work, or train when I came home late. It was also cool to see how
happy he was when I was progressing, when I could lift more weights or do
better push-ups. Isn’t it amazing when you have a friend who is happy for your
progress and for your improvement, not just for their own. Now I am training
cycling much more seriously, I train every day in body strength and aim towards
some pretty big challenging rides this year. This reminds me of something so important
that I learnt. WE ALL START SOMEWHERE. No matter how you feel or where you
are, you are at the perfect place to grow, you can improve and in order to get
anywhere you start where you are, any steps forward from there can bring you
closer to your goal. So many times I guess we don’t want to start something
because we feel so far away. I know I am a long way away still from competitive
cycling or from being a good cyclist… but I am also so much closer then I used
to be, so so much closer and I have grown so much, so sometimes if you look
ahead and see… shittt…. There is such a long road up there, maybe you also need
to look back and see… yes it is a long road, but I have also come a long way
and I am closer now then ever before. KEEP TRYING. A star looks tiny from far
away, but close up it’s a big burning ball of fire and light… that’s what we
are… anyone can look at you and see you as that tiny dot.. that is just one
perspective, you are so much more. You are that ball of fire and light and you
will burn it up.
Other highlights of last year included
rebuilding CE in Serbia with my wonderful friends Danny and Lani. My heart
fills with joy every time I think about CE in Novi Sad and that it is still
running thriving. I have to admit, I feel so proud of my achievement with that
business, and also of all the people who are part of the story and even prouder
of Danny, Lani and the crew of CE over there. The staff there remain to be very
dear to my heart, and I love them all very much. We went through some real
tough moments together this year, and when I was at a very low place the staff
of CE came together and said they wanted to fight to keep it open. Without
them, CE would be nowhere close to where I t is today. 
One special part of this year and of
working in CE Graz has been our collaboration with Veloblitz, (bike
messengers). Such an unusual and wonderful crew of people, very hard-working
and alternative. I am so thankful that they are part of CE and hope they
continue to be with us for as long as possible. When you live away from your
home and family (like me), the people around you become your family. Veloblitz
are with us every day, I learnt a lot from all of them and also.. how cool to
have a bike messenger base inside our café.
I learnt a lot last year, and I struggled
a lot. I am proud of myself and thankful for every moment. The top five things
I feel I would like to share are.
1.
Everything passes, keep
fighting for what you want no matter how you feel, from a further distance
things look so different.
2.
To get different
results, you have to do different things. If you want to have changes in your
life you have to force yourself out of the comfortable and into the danger zone
of new opportunity and risk.
3.
Other people’s opinions
are just their opinions, caring less what others think is very difficult if you
are an emotionally sensitive person, but with time you can get better at it.
4.
Your 20’s are a
difficult time, cut yourself some slack. No one is as far ahead and awesome as
you think, it’s a struggle (thank you Kim for the right advice in the right
moment, you know what I mean)
5.
Life is full of ups and
downs, highs and lows, happy moments and deep sadness. The colours of life are
all beautiful and make the picture complete. When you are in the low, keep
pushing as hard as you can, its going to get back up again eventually, it
always has before.. so why not this time.
What do I want to strive for next year,
Well I always love to set high goals and
sometimes they are a little bit too high. With all the other stuff I have to do
every day, adding big ambitions can be a recipe for disaster. Last year I tried
to section my goals into months and focus on one thing every month. This didn’t
work for me, most of the time I forgot what I was meant to focus on. However
when I see it at the end and think about it, I kind of covered all those goals
but in other months then I intended.
Something exciting is that I will be
working as a bike messenger with
Veloblitz, starting in February (hopefully). I have really bad directional
skills and also pretty poor German.. so this is going to be interesting. Even
though I may not be the best bike messenger ever (could be the worst), I still
want to try, I love cycling and this would be a dream come true.
Also I stopped smoking (10 days in so far)
I intend this year to ride my bike a lot,
compete in some hard bike races….
Check out this one I registered to… If I can
train enough to get in shape for it
I also intend to try a lot, which probably
means I will fall a lot… metaphorically and for real. I don’t want to stop
doing anything I want to because of fear that I wont be good at it or that
others will laugh at me. What does it matter anyways? Life is too short to
spend time stopping yourself because of other people.
I intend to improve CE as much as I can…
I intend to live in peace and love in every
way and spread harmony to those around me if I can.
And yes if you are wondering why I am so
happy and excited, it could also be because of the small matter of falling in
love with a wonderful person. Yes the year finished better then I could ever
imagine. So that’s all for now
Here is a link to the TEDx talk I did in
October if anyone missed it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZIaSi-POyU
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