August has flown by in a second and feels like it lasted forever at the same time. It was such an incredibly exciting month with a huge change: starting my first full-time job. I am doing a traineeship for the next two years for one of the public broadcasting agencies in Germany. During my traineeship I will be learning about TV, radio, online and social media journalism all across Northern Germany.
I was so thrilled to start this new period of my life, I have waited for an intensely long time to both get this job and then to start it and yet at the beginning of August I was pretty nervous. With my new job came a new city, 17 new other trainees whom I was going to live with and a lot of uncertainty.
Especially because I was thrown in a situation not many of us experience in their mid-to-late-twenties: I was thrown in a completely new group. While many of us move to a new city to study or for a job in our early twenties, at a later point we are usually somewhat settled in our daily lives, have a set group of friends, possibly a partner and a pretty set way of day to day life. Meanwhile me and my 17 colleagues just got completely uprooted, moved to a new city, in a house full of complete strangers, who are sharing at least 9 hours of our day and are our main social contacts.
I was terrified of this change, I was so anxious I was not going to like anybody or no one was going to like me, I thought it was an insane idea and yet here I am absolutely loving every second and missing the others after a day spent apart. The situation I am in at the moment is new, it is uncommon, it is challenging, but it is so good for me. It has challenged how I view myself, it has thrown a spotlight back on how I present myself and interact with others and I am pretty sure it has made me a somewhat more self-aware and better person. Compared to 16 year-old me I do not feel any need to be more guarded or act different from, who I am, but being in a new group with very different characters and people I would probably not normally hang out with, has allowed me to change my perspective of how I view myself and others. It challenged me to be more open-minded, more patient and a better team-worker
I have encountered new ways of thinking, new ways of living, new ways of approaching work and groups and I am lucky enough to draw from each of this living experiences. I think that especially in a field like journalism, seeing and learning about different approaches is so inspiring and so good for your work. All of my colleagues have worked in different fields, have other experiences than I have and other skills and it is so great and such a luxury to benefit from all that knowledge.
I have encountered new ways of thinking, new ways of living, new ways of approaching work and groups and I am lucky enough to draw from each of this living experiences. I think that especially in a field like journalism, seeing and learning about different approaches is so inspiring and so good for your work. All of my colleagues have worked in different fields, have other experiences than I have and other skills and it is so great and such a luxury to benefit from all that knowledge.
And on top of that they are such nice people. I was sure I was going to have a mental breakdown after one week of living with people I spend all day with, I was sure I was going to hide in my room a lot of the time and that I would be completely burned out after a week. Yet here I am after spending one night without them and can´t wait to see them again. There is nothing quite like shoving 18 strangers in one house and force them to learn new skills for eight hours a day to make sure friendships will be built extremely quickly. I feel like I am in an extremely cool gang, always leaving the house with a group of at least six people and it feels awesome to know there is always someone to watch TV, cook, get some ice-cream or head to the gym.
What this experience has taught me is something I think most of underestimate: the best thing you can do is to throw yourself into new situations, new groups, new places any chance you get. To always challenge your beliefs, your perception of yourself and others, to embrace the unknown. Those moments are when we are most alive, experience everything most intensely and I ultimately think they are what make us happy, because they make us grow. Or to put it with one of my all-time favourite quotes:
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
- Christopher McCandles
Read: Way too little (I am busy hanging out with the same people everyday for 10 to 11 hours). But finished An American Marriage.
Felt: So intensely content with my life. I feel so incredibly lucky to be where I am in life right now, to know what I will be up to for the next two years, to learn about something I am so passionate about.
Drank: An intense amount of sparkling wine.
Spent: 90 per cent of my time in a radius of 500 meters and have seen about two other corners of my new city.
Baked: Another birthday cake, which burned but feel like this is now my birthday tradition for people I really like.
Learned: how to film and edit on a smartphone, how to write news, how to pronounce word endings correctly and how much I love learning and being busy.
Slept: Almost all day, when I am not currently running around like I am on crack.
Watched: Season two of Mindhunter and absolutely loved it. If you are into serial killers and true crime like I am: please watch it!
Went: To the Dockville again. This festival will forever have my heart even though it rained cats and dogs this time around
