Where Are You? 4 🌅

Ever since I left uni and started working, I had a strong sense of finding purpose in my career. I sincerely believed that I could find happiness at work. That out of all places, it was just hiding somewhere at the office.

Nine years of work experience were filled with struggle. Many times I've tried to change something about myself to fit the narrative that I had made myself believe for so long. Changing jobs, changing professions, changing careers. I struggled because somehow, work didn't fulfil me. I struggled, because somehow, work didn't give me purpose. For quite some time, I believed that something was wrong with me for not being able to find the happiness that I had promised to myself.

At the beginning of last year, I gave up looking. Suddenly, I felt convinced that my twenty-four-year-old self had been wrong. I felt convinced that I won't find happiness at work. And so, I made a decision. A decision to reduce my work hours to a four-day week. A wonderful decision to work less and live more.

FREEDAY

And with that, Friday got a new meaning. "Freitag", directly translated from German means "Free day". Of course, "Freitag" has been called that for centuries, but what changed was that now I would take its meaning literally.

And since Friday was now such a special day to me, writing it in all caps felt like a necessity. FREEDAY was born! FREEDAY was special. I'd have brunch in the sun in one of Vienna's coffee houses, I'd go to the museum, I'd go on hikes in the Vienna Woods, I'd go to the Kuffner Observatory to follow my newest hobby, stargazing. FREEDAY was exciting!

Also, it seemed to be the perfect time to seal the deal, because all of these activities I didn't do by myself, but with Sophia. And right around that time, Sophia and I became a couple.

Living too much

If you have FREEDAY in your life and are head over heels in love with somebody, the world is your oyster. Endless possibilities emerged in my mind. We hiked in the Northern Limestone Alps in Styria and Lower Austria with overnight stays in wooden cabins. We did stand-up paddling on the Old and morning swims in the New Danube in Vienna, before summer really kicked off.

And all of a sudden, life became what I always envisioned it to be, if you only work for four days a week. We worked less and lived more. We took a week-long trip to Berlin, to do remote work from the German capital, meet parents, babysit a cat, go pedal boating, ride bicycles and reunite with my childhood friend Chris.

And we were far from being done. After a week of travelling through my own country with a friend from Finland, we took a trip to Graz, my hometown (to meet more parents), followed by a week of holiday on a remote Greek island and a weekend in Prague to see a DJ act.

Right about that time, we realized that we lived life with almost too much speed. And yet, there was still the matter of the wedding in Northern Italy, that we had been invited to. But that's the deal if you live so much. Your leisure time almost becomes stressful. We were longing for an exciting life, but we couldn't cope with all the stress, because there was still standing something between us and absolute freedom: the fact that we still had to work four days a week!

A grand decision

The grand decision we took then would reduce our work week by four additional days. A decision to not work at all for an entire year and travel around the world instead.

Living too much caused some kind of stress, but it seems that's because there was still too much work mixed in between all that living. Today, I wonder why I hesitated. I've known for years that the government supports people working in Austria to take some time off to educate themselves. Why not spend this time travelling?

The /been page

After coming up with the idea for the where page and travelling for quite some time, I realized that the list of visited countries grew and grew. That's when I decided to log the countries I have visited. It's nice to look back and appreciate being able to travel as much as I do right now.

And with that, I announce the /been page, which shows a list of all the countries I have visited this year and the years prior. Looking back at all the travelling I have done in the previous years, I came up with themes for every one of them. Last year's theme obviously was "living too much", this year it's "trip around the world".

I'm convinced that a decision to work less is never a bad one. No one on their deathbed has probably ever said: "If only, I had worked more".

Rather these are more common sentences someone would probably say:

If only I had spent more time with friends and family.

If only I had travelled more.

If only I had lived more.

Ever since I reduced my work hours, I've found new areas to look for my happiness: writing, travelling and most importantly, living.

We all need more FREEDAYs in our lives!