Posts Tagged ‘dream’

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!

Everyone who moved to a foreign country once in his life, might already know what I want to talk about in this post. “those days” are the days that you never want to experience, but no matter how long you have been living abroad – it will always haunt you. Those days are the days, on which you ask yourself what the f*** you are doing. On those days you ask yourself, if you made the right decision and sometimes you even cry. I tend to have those days once every months or a little less. On most of those days I even wake up sad, missing my friends, missing my old life and just feel miserable.

On those days I cant really take myself seriously. Sure, I miss my friends and I miss my old home, but I dont want to change anything right now! I love living here, I love the new friends we found and I love our new life. But you kind of need to have those days because they make you realize that you left something important and that you still care.

I think I will never get rid of those days – and I might not even want to – but it helps a lot to understand whats happening. I actually got warned about those days by our friend Tanja. And now I would like to warn future emmigrants or people who might go through it right now. Dont let those days get you down. Dont let them ruin your dream! Just let them pass and try not to get to sad! Its natural to feel that way, it happens and sometimes it even helps me to not feel that guilty for leaving my friends and family behind.

I love you guys, I miss you and that will never change! No matter where I am!

Yesterday I talked to one of my friends, with whom I hadn’t speaken in a while. She asked me about how we were doing and about my feelings regarding my new life in the US. Sure, we think about this a lot and talk about it, but it feels different to talk about it to someone other than Flo. It kind of makes it so much more real. And it makes you kind of proud of yourself.

I have to say that we had a real good plan before we moved here. And that we had thought everything through so well. But even if we had luck on our side and everything worked out amazing so far, this was and still is a huge challenge. Maybe even the biggest challenge of our lifes! Every day you have to get yourself together again, go out there and do things you never thought you have to do again. You have to find new friends, you have to start a new job, a whole new life – and you have to do all of this in a new language! You find yourself in situations that leave you so sad. Like not having the network of friends you had at home. Not having your family close to come to the rescue whenever you need them. And just to be yourself, be brave and live!

Even if it feels strange to say this about myself, I am so proud Flo and I did this. And I am even more proud on how well we did it! I am beyond happy that we took that challenge and that we didn’t give up.

Please be aware: This is a dream. This is an amazing journey I would recommend to everyone. But it is hard! It is crazy! And it sometimes feels like being a kid again that has to learn everything new. But it is worth it! Definetely!