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I have a german colleague at work, which happens to live in the same area we do. Sometimes we take advantage of that and carpool to work. This week – while driving all the way down to Downtown – we started talking about work. During that talk I told her that I am a kind of person that always thinks he can achieve more, do better or set himself higher goals. She told me that this in general is a good thing to do, but that I should give myself enough credit for what I have already achieved over here. That made me think!

If I make a list of the things that I have already achieved in my career, that list ends up being pretty long. I always followed my dreams and even if there were some bumpy roads along the way, I made nearly all of them come true. Even over here I alreay climbed the career ladder a little and actually made my job be the one I always wanted. Another notable thing she told me is that we sometimes tend to not give ourselves enough extra credit for not being natives. For sure everything gets easier by time, but still it is a pretty high achievement to perform better than some of your colleagues when you have to talk in a foreign language all day long.

There are still a ton of goals I want to reach in my career. And I am far away from giving up. But sometimes it is nice to take a little rest and feel proud of yourself. Even if you just do the normal things in life – you do them in another language. And no matter what, that is a big achievement on it’s own!

The other day we went out to dinner with one of our german friends over here. He had moved here a few years ago to be with his girlfriend/now wife. It is always nice to hang out with people that go through the same we do and last time he said something that really made me think. His sister, who lives in Germany, is gonna have a kid soon and I asked him, if he is sad that he will miss out on that child growing up. His answer was no. He said he made peace with his decision to move here a long time ago. There are hard times when you are gonna miss something important or when something bad happens. But you can’t live your life over here giving yourself a hard time about your own decision.

I am totally on the same page with him about this. I still have those moments where I feel guilty, because my decision to move here hurt and still hurts people I love. But how could I cut back on my own dreams only to make other people happy! There will always be moments where I will probably wish to be in Germany. But I can’t make or take back my decision based on these few moments. What important is that Flo and I are going to be happy in the long run. And if taking this big step makes us happy, this is what we have to do and keep on doing.

Accepting our own decision and making peace with it will probably take us a few more months or years. But I know that is what we have to and will do. I mean we love living here, we are happy – and what more could you wish for?! Live is short. But even if some decisions suck and sometimes hurt, if they make you happy you should stick with them!

I was so really sorry to read that there has been a problem with this year’s Greencard Lottery. I know that it won’t help anyone who got selected in the what now seems to be a wrong process. It’s not any help to think about this as fate’s decision, I know. But please keep your heads up high and try to still follow your dreams!

Even if we didn’t think about the whole Greencard thing when we got selected, I wouldn’t have given that opportunity away by any chance. Even if this wasn’t on our agenda at all, we adapted the idea of moving to the US so fast that we made the decision to move within a week. And now two years later, we actually live in the US, love it and don’t want to leave anytime in the near future.

I really know that most of you out there are stoked about this second opportunity to get selected for the Greencard this year. But please have those in mind who thought they were lucky and now must be deeply disappointed. I really feel with you!