Did you ever wonder what you really want in life?

I have been asking myself the same question again and again for so many years. What is my goal? What is my dream? What I am passionate about? Have I ever wanted something in my life bad enough? I have no idea. What inspires me? What moves me in difficult situations?

I enjoy to do different things. As you can see I love to write and I always did. I love colors, paintings, art in general, fashion, design and photography, but I also love and enjoy to have daily interaction with people. I love heavy metal music and I have alternative lifestyle. Sometimes I also like to be alone. I enjoy to learn new skills. I enjoy new experiences. I love to travel. I love to ride a motorbike. I love to cook and bake. But I can not surely say that I ever wanted something bad enough in my life.

I am one of those alternatives in general. When people ask me: ”How you doing?”, I always say: ”I am OK, not on top of the world, but it might be better someday.” And it actually always turn to be better somehow, without really making any big effort or forcing anything. Some of you might say that I was always lucky and that everything came in the easy way to me. But it was not always easy, I make it to seem easy myself with my attitude. I was always kind of, ”If this doesn’t work out this way, let’s try another way, let’s see it from another perspective, let’s be patient, let’s do something differently.”, with no big stress or passion to accomplish something really badly. I can surely say that I have never really burn for something in my entire life. Some of you might think that I am not passionate about anything. Maybe I am but for different things in a different way, but maybe I am not at all after all. For sure I am an easy-going person. I have never forced anything to happen in my life. It doesn’t mean that I don’t work hard. I work very hard. Whatever I do I do it with love, care, attention, seriousness and responsibly. Still I have never accomplished something very big so I can feel proud of myself.

Take this blog for example. Even though I put my whole soul and a lot of love, effort and time into it, it is not so successful as some other blogs. I never had more than 100 views per day, with an exception of few interviews with some famous people and my blog post about Dimash Kudaibergenov that were liked and viewed the most. So should I start to doubt my content writing skills because of this, of course not, I am going to continue doing what I love to do. I am sure that one day my blog is going to become successful, because everything I write comes out of my soul and my pure feelings. For sure I am not going to show my boobs or my ass to the world in order to become successful like some young bloggers do. I believe that there are a lot of people out there who are going to understand and appreciate what I am doing here one day. I might never have the most read blog, but I hope to win the love and appreciation of my readers. Take Dimash Kudaibergenov for example, a talented young boy from Kazakhstan, who did not win the singing competition but he won our love and adoration because whatever he does he is doing it with love.

Therefore I decided to go back in time, trying to find my sources of passion, so I can understand and realize what are my real passions. I asked myself what were those favorite moments of my childhood life? I remember that my favorite presents as a kid were all kind of colors and sketching books. My favorite classes in the school was art, geography, languages, written works and literature. I was always very excited about traveling. I really loved friends and family gatherings. My favorite person after my mom was my grandmother Mara, because she always had so many interesting stories to tell. My fashion icon was my aunt B., mom’s younger sister. In comparison with my mom she seemed so bright and colorful to me as a little girl. My mom worked in the financial sector for a big international corporation, therefore she was always dressed in a kind of business attire. My aunt B. was a student in the capital city at the time. Every time she was coming to visit us she seemed different from other ladies from my surrounding to me. She was wearing all kinds of colorful Boho-chic style dresses, a lot of accessories, colorful shoes, big hair, make up. In my eyes she was the most beautiful and interesting girl in the town. I was so happy when she let me wear her big earrings, necklaces, belts and bracelets or even to carry around the house her purple purse with tassels and pose in front of the mirror. Probably she is the reason I still love colorful shoes and bags. So when I go back in time and I think about my childhood life, something that really expressed me and excited me back then, and it still does and something that everyone who knows me very well can tell about me is the creativity and self-expression. The reason I am going trough this process is because you can spend your whole life wondering how it is going to turn out for you some day, and hopping that is going to turn out somehow, someday, but in the reality there is only today and right now. It is about what are you doing right now, for yourself and your life, there is no some day. But in order to succeed and reach the top of the world, first you have to find out what you really want from your life.

Life is so short and so unpredictable. I realized this last summer after I suddenly lost my ex-husband and my step father within few weeks. My ex was in the early fifties, he seemed healthy and happy, he was making plans for the future. As he said he was ready to move in to a new marriage and to new investments. He suddenly died from the heart attack. My step father was strong and healthy man. One day he just slipped down in the shower. He hurt his spine so badly. After long neurosurgery, he passed away. Nobody expected this. His loss was so sudden and so painful for my mom and me. It still seems so unreal to me that I will never see his smiling face again. One is sure we will carry him in our hearts forever.

So what I understood from this life lesson is that there are two different ways to live your life. You can just wait to something to happen or hopefully happen, or you can create your life right now, because there is no time for waiting. The truth is that I have done so many things in order to accomplish something better and bigger in my life. I still keep educating myself in different fields, I read a lot, I communicate with people a lot, I am an open-minded person. I have nice and well paid job, I live in the the Netherlands, a country where the quality of life is rated as one of the best in European Union, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office indicators. But I still live an average life, without any big accomplishments. This is how I feel about my life, some other people might have a different opinion. I still keep seeing around me a lot of people less educated, and less talented than me, holding better and higher job positions than me, working less than me and making way more money than I can ever imagine.

So I decided to find out what I really want in life, what moves me, what I am really passionate about. Maybe all this time I was spending my time and energy on the wrong things instead doing something that really suits me.

When I think about what makes me happy, I can say that a lot of things makes me happy. But all these waves of happiness are just waves that come and go away. Nothing really made me happy or sad in my life for a long period of time. So the only explanation I have for this is that nothing from outside is really able to make us happy or sad. We carry the happiness and sadness within. Everything we feel comes right out of our mind. So I started to wonder if I have lost my passion and my happiness in the way, or is it still hidden somewhere inside of me. Have I ever been truly happy and passionate about anything? It is good to make self-evaluation from time to time and work more on your self-awareness and this is what I am trying to do it here.

Maria Robinson said: ”Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Gandhi said: ”Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  In other words, although life changes are inevitable, we can also initiate personal change so we can rise to the challenge and become a bigger and better. Life goes on and never stands still, no matter what we do. However, it is in those very moments when everything looks hopeless that we have a real chance to grow into something  bigger and better. What is the end of life for caterpillar, we call it a beautiful butterfly. Knowing this means that we can be more at ease with change. Remember the Ugly Duckling fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The story is beloved around the world as a tale about personal transformation for the better.

I wish to find the strength to make this big change in my life. I don’t want to live it anything for some day. I want to live my life now and today. It is never to late for positive changes. Working as a team leader and manager for so many years, I have repeat this words of Albert Einstein to my team members so many times, I used in my articles often as well and it say: ”If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.” I have to be honest and make a confession to you, even though I like this quote and I find it so inspirational and motivational I have never actually followed the quote myself. I always did as I always do, and somehow, some positive changes came into my life. I was just welcoming things in my life as they were coming, without putting the big effort to accomplish anything more than that.

I talked about it few days ago with an old friend of mine. He said that in his opinion this is not so bad to be alternative in life. The alternative people in his opinion live longer and happiest life because they have no stress to achieve anything and most of the time they even achieve more than others does, with safe and easy steps without forcing anything. I tried to play the devil’s advocate role in this interesting conversation and I asked him : ”OK, I am alternative and I do have this alternative lifestyle in general and you believe that this is totally cool, but I have never accomplish something big in my life yet by being like this. Don’t you think that I should start with some changes?” He said: ”You can not say this for sure, because by being yourself and by doing what you do in the way you do, you might already made very big steps to accomplish something very big even though you haven’t realized yet. Time will tell.” So he left me speechless in the end.

When I discussed the same issue with my mother her advice was : ”Whatever you can do it today, do it, don’t leave it for the next day.” I think this is very smart advice in general, for me and for everyone. In the end I still don’t know what should I do. Should I continue to be alternative and free of stress, even I got the feeling that I might accomplish much more if I change my ways and my lifestyle? Should I continue to base all my decisions on different kind of approaches and alternatives?  Should I continue to not follow the usual expected paths to success and take it from life what ever life offers, or should I start chasing my dreams, whatever they are?

At the end of the day I am still confused, at least I did started to wonder about what if…and I am still calm and positive. Since I mentioned ”what if..”, I must share an interesting quote that caught my attention few days ago. It is written by an anonymous writer and it says: ”If you worry about what might be and wonder about what might have been you will ignore what is.” This quote confused me even more. There are probably so many things to say or do about the question:  Did you ever wonder what you really want in life? I am sure that this article will be continued in the future. Please fill free to comment, every advice is welcome.