This text was originally published on my former blog typeoneminimalist.com. The website has been offline since 2020. This is an archive version.

Just when you think your life is on track, the unexpected happens. A tale about expectations, goals and happiness.

I remember playing this game called “Lego Racers” as a child. On one race-track, the route split up into two paths. One of the paths seemed to be a shortcut and led me through an ancient pyramid and waterfalls. However, it also contained a gate that only opened every few seconds. And therefore, it often happened that I crashed into a wall at full speed. I then either had to wait until the gate opened again or return to the main track. Over time, I became aware of the danger and always slowed down when approaching the gate.

It’s an absurd analogy. But it remembers me of the importance of slowing the f*ck down when approaching a larger goal.

A lost sense.

The past few months were quite unique in my life. I worked full-time as what was supposed to be my dream job. Without a doubt, the tasks themselves were great and interesting. Everything else, however, was a bit different from what I expected. Yeah, I had this amazing job title – but I also had difficulties finding and identifying with the company’s values and completely lost the sense for myself.

My search for my role in the organization eventually ended up in a severe identity crisis – which led me as far as searching for a sense of humanity. I guess I don’t have to tell anyone what this does to one’s happiness. One and a half months into the job, I found myself lost in some kind of empty space. My motivation had vanished and my whole existence was based on discipline.

Still, I really wanted to give this amazing opportunity a chance – so I kept putting in work every day. Regardless, it just made me unhappier. Discipline has limits. Too many aspects were either missing or didn’t fit me. At this point, I knew I had to make a change. Deciding on leaving this (probably) once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity behind, wasn’t an easy choice. But seeing how I was letting myself go more and more was the tipping point – it finally convinced me not to extend my contract.

Coming back to my Lego Racers-analogy: Reflecting on those months somehow reminded me of how I used to crash into the wall at full speed for weeks as a child. I didn’t manage to win the race until I realized I had to slow the hell down and switch routes if I was about to crash. And now, the exact same thing happened to me in real-life.

Rat-race.

Often times, we choose to chase our “big goals” with all the energy we have – and at a certain point, we forget what’s in front of us. We chase the goal so hard that we neglect ourselves and let the goal, the job or whatever we’re chasing take over our personality. However, the thing is: A human doesn’t thrive on external goals. We all have an inner soul with unique value – and we can’t (and in most cases shouldn’t) get rid of it. In fact, letting our personality run free is what’s makes us happy. And I think it’s one of the most beautiful aspects of humanity.

So far, so good. Realization is the first step to make a positive change. But here comes the difficult part: Embracing it if needed. In fact, changes can be hard. In my case, I was in a quite lucky position: I’m in the third year of my bachelor’s degree and a full-time-position wouldn’t have been an option after the three months anyway. I still need money but I can earn the little amount I live off from basically anywhere. Lots of people are in a more difficult situation because they’re dependent on a larger income.

Therefore, I can only tell you what worked for me for getting out of my rut. But I feel like the approaches generally are quite similar.

Finding alternatives.

The most important thing which kept me alive during the last month definitely was finding and working on alternatives. I re-discovered coding and took digital marketing classes online – things that I once loved but increasingly neglected during my path to becoming a business-journalist. Now, I’m asking myself: Why? I also visited more networking events and went on informal coffee-meetings than usual. Eventually, I found a small voluntary position which gave me enough hope to make a professional cut.

I’m not sure if this is the right path either. I only know, that for now, I feel way better focusing on my studies and doing this – which positively affects my productivity and motivation. I also found some interesting opportunities abroad which gave me new and exciting outlooks. But at this point, let’s not speculate about the future. From now on, I’ll definitely be skeptical about setting goals I haven’t had a taste of yet.

Making sense of it all.

Maybe, my personal low during the past few months might just have been what I needed. On the surface, it was a professional journey, but behind the curtain, it felt more like a personal-development-bootcamp. And from what I’ve observed, I’m by far not the only one experiencing such a rut. Several friends of mine told me they experienced similar situations.

But why is this happening? Personally, I feel like it’s a generational phenomenon – especially among young, hard-working university students. Growing up in the 21st Century, we’re supposed to constantly chase a single big goal in the form of a job, power, influence or money. And we do everything to make it real. But doing so, we tend to lose sight of the big picture: life and everything around it. In order to avoid that, I now ask myself “What difference do I want to make on this planet?” and “How do I even want to live?” instead of “What do I want to become?”.

Big thinkers like Stephen Hawking or Steve Wozniak (he’s still my secret hero in the computer-business, sorry Steve Jobs) didn’t accomplish great things because of their job title. They wanted to advance humanity and make this planet a nicer place for everyone. That’s exactly what I feel is what life is about: Leaving marks and helping people better solve their problems. And it’s on us, what kind of marks these shall be.