2018 – Emotional Roller-Coaster Ride

This is going to be a very personal blog post of mine for 2018. I’ve never shared so much insight into myself with all you readers before. But maybe I can help someone in their life with what I write about mine. At least you’ll get to know more about me as a person, the writer behind surf-theglobe.

2018 hasn’t been a good year for me. Somehow I felt it was the hardest year of traveling in my life so far. A year in which I had learned the most. Why do people always have to get lost before they find themselves again?
I guess if you don’t get lost or lose anything you can’t find yourself. I’m going to open up myself completely in this post. On a metaphorical level, I’ll stand naked in front of you, the reader – all of you who will read this.

I had felt terribly lost this year. And I don’t want your compassion or anything like that right now. Actually I just want to give free rein to my feelings and thoughts and reflections from this year. What I learned this year in a hard and unrelenting way.

1. Take Care Of Yourself

You have to take care of yourself before you can make anyone else happy. I have been following many of my friends this year to some countries to travel and live with them. First of all please don’t get me wrong, I had so much fun in Mexico and all the other countries. The posts I shared with you were 100% what I wanted to share with you. But it does not change the fact that I would have liked to have explored more things and experiences by myself. In the end, I did not really listen to my own needs and only did what others wanted me to do in order to make them happy. But the side effect was – I didn’t listen to my own needs.

2. Universal Love

For a few months of 2018, I didn’t know what my goal in life was anymore. Therefore I had the feeling that I contributed nothing to this world. Sometimes, unfortunately, I have terrible metaphysical crises in life. Then I start to wonder what the meaning behind my existence is. Why I ended up in this world? And what the hell I am doing here? Yes, sometimes I forget how to love myself. When I felt so lost this year, I could not give the love I wanted to others. And I believe in the end (or I even know it now) the essence of life is universal love. Love which you give away and the divine love that everyone (and I do really mean everyone) should receive in their lives.

Volunteering

Over the last few years, I had done a lot of volunteer work that has filled my heart with incredible joy and love. Helping people without expecting anything in return reduces my personal stress and fills my heart with unconditional love. Every human being is different and I think every human being has to find their own way to increase their bliss with time. I thought- for me- it was just traveling. But it is certainly not. I want to do more for this world. And my happiness is a balance between work (creative work), volunteering, traveling and spending time with people I love around the world.

3. Finance

I always thought I would never get corrupted by money. But it happened to me this year. I did a bad job or two in New Zealand in 2018, which made me wither inside. I led this lifestyle of 9-5 that had made me a miserable person. It molded me into a person I didn’t even recognize. That’s how I started not loving myself anymore. It is very important to me to see the results of my work – what I did and who I could help with it. Instead, I worked for a profit-hungry hunting company and a restaurant with sleazy business practices. It was terrifying to see how money could so easily brainwash me. I had $7,000 more in my bank account at the end of my stay in New Zealand, but I was heartbroken and lost. Finding a job that you really enjoy so that you do not have to call it a job is not easy.

Do We Work Only For Money?

And we should also ask the question – Do we work for the money or because we enjoy it? Every week, I would see the numbers rise higher in my bank account. But I was digging myself to death just because I thought it would guarantee my freedom. But freedom is never guaranteed. For your own sake, do fight for your freedom! And I mean freedom on all levels, be it freedom of opinion, religious freedom or mental freedom.

In the end, I did not understand why I should work in a job to see only digital numbers in a bank account rise. Money which got transferred into my account which will be spent anyway. And believing in a banking system that exists only in our heads and imagination, otherwise the whole world in which we live would not work. I was so tired of looking at myself in the mirror every morning and wondering why and what the heck I am doing with my life. And it was a time when I felt especially lost.

4. Future & Present

Over the years, I have not been true to myself about one particular issue. It’s because it took me until now to fully realize what I truly want and not just what the world expects of me. Every year I came back to Germany – I said as usual: “Next year I will come back and live here again.”

Only this year I understand myself a little better, and my true beliefs and desires in life, and I’ve come to the realization that I do not want to live in Germany anymore. But to tell the truth to my friends and my mother – I simply couldn’t. I have always been a very adventurous person who loves and needs diversity. I spent 12 years of my life in Germany. But I also want to live in different places in the world with different cultures and customs.

This year, I finally came back to spend Christmas in 2018 with my mother. And after feeling so lost in 2018, it only now became clear to me that I would love to live in 2 or 3 different countries later somewhere in the unknown future.

Expectations

Therefore, I called my health insurance and told them I’m going to quit next year, the woman on the phone replied, “What do you mean?! You’re only 22 years old, you’re about to graduate soon. Then you will work and your wages are then deducted from the cost of health insurance.”

And I would pay retirement pension even up to 67 years. But who the hell can guarantee me that I’ll live until I’m 67? So can you promise me now that I will live to 67? Furthermore can you then promise me that my health and happiness will be guaranteed until then? Of course not, so I just wish everyone would live the way he or she wants to and truly follow their own heart. This also means that you have to think for yourself. Don’t let society, your parents or even me plant the seeds of your thoughts on how your life should be.

But I asked myself many questions. Why should I do what this society demands of me? Isn’t this insurance about collective well-being? Or is it my well-being? And which is more important? Hence sometimes I ask myself, why the hell are they trying to make me believe that I’m an apple and should be an apple – when I’m clearly a watermelon?

If the woman had called a younger version of myself on the phone 4 or 5 years ago, I would never have quit my health insurance. I would have simply accepted this one option without worrying much about it.

Paradigm

The issue is, before I even think about retirement. I prefer to think about the present. Also I feel like I’m only living in the future because everyone tells me how important the future is.

Please do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with worrying about the future and thinking about where you would like to be in the future. I also consider it more than you could imagine. I do have very big goals in life. But how often do I catch myself talking to friends and my mother about the future. When was the last time I lived in the moment I am in right now? Even when I am in a splendidly beautiful place in Asia or South America, sometimes I ask myself when would I return the next time to that place – in the same moment that I’m already there! Don’t you see the paradigm in it?

I have decided that I have to listen more to my heart in order to be a happier and better version of myself. And when I’m strong enough, I am able to share my bliss with others. But first I have to know who I am and what I really want. To achieve this, I have to step outside of society’s expectations and think outside the box. At least for myself.

5. Reality

The last point revolves around the fact that I sometimes don’t know what is and isn’t reality. I already sound like one of those hippie people I used to make fun of. And I do not want to dwell on how VERY spiritual I became this year. But just a few things to say: I went to a healer in Bali this year (wow, one thing I would never have thought I would do in my life). And my visit there has changed my view on life. My view of the world maybe. Moreover, many other-worldly experiences in New Zealand happened this year I really couldn’t explain with my immense rationality.

And I just want to say that I strongly believe now: When you really want something in your life, the whole universe conspires to help you get it, I promise. Even if it does not look like that, I firmly believe that dreams do come true even if we get lost sometimes (it’s just a fun detour, actually). I felt very lost this year and sometimes even marooned. But those moments in life shape who we are today. We are not dying from experiences like that.

No, on the contrary, we are only getting stronger. If you want to know more about my spirituality and my experiences, feel free to contact me But let me tell you, you are the reality you are creating for yourself and no one else besides you can create it.

The End Of 2018

After my blog post about Dias de los Muertos, I went back to Taiwan for one week and back to my ‘Home’ in Bali for a month. Bali was, as always, a mirror of myself. To recognize what I want. I also had a lot of surfing sessions in November 2018 which I enjoyed. And had an enormous amount of time to think and reflect. But most of all, I had time to heal myself and spend some time with people I love. After Bali, I was in Budapest (my eighth time, since in my childhood I was often in Hungary), and back to Germany to spend Christmas with my mother.

The year was a big roller coaster for my emotions and I just say: Bring on 2019! PS: This is officially my 70th Blog Post and last post for 2018. I would like to leave most decisions to the spur of the moment.

‘Panta Rhei’ I’ll go with the flow and let myself drift with time and space. And I will be open to everything that comes my way. Because I have the decision about how I shape my life and I am the one who creates my reality. Happy New Year to you all!