“What about you, what do you do in life?”

And now, do you know what to say? Are you shooting out one word and feel like that is really you? Did you like the answer you just gave?

Are you really identifying with that roll you described your life with?

Student. Housewife. Doctor. Photographer. Artist. Carpenter. Dad. Teacher. Unemployed.

“What about you, what do you do?” I get asked and I notice something has changed. Still unsure what to answer, but no longer starting to sweat in terror because I feel like I have nothing understandable to say. I still don’t know what to say, I don’t have a one-worded-answer which I assume they would expect, but that doesn’t bother me any longer.

Why do I assume they expect such a one phrase answer? Maybe because it happened many times before. And why did I hate it so much? Maybe because I never created one phrase that seemed to resume my whole being. And maybe I put way too much importance into what people think.

I just don’t like when they judge my choices, because I also don’t want to judge theirs.

So what do I do?

Today I got up with the sun, jogged 10km along a turquoise river, drank a coffee. I feel fitter and lighter than ever after keeping up daily exercises in the mornings for the past six months, still I have to motivate myself every morning. Now I sit in a marvellous botanical Garden Café in Bern, Switzerlands capital, a city I don’t know. I write, maybe I’ll go for a swim later. Maybe meet up for a coffee. I am very excited about reading a new book I got, that seems to really put my thoughts together. I feel like every day I learn as much as six years of school weren’t able to tech me. Finally I get to choose my subjects, my teachers, they are the books I read. Meanwhile I am constantly figuring out where this self-made University will lead me.

How do I want to earn it and make it work for me? What is my time worth? Who do I want around me in life? Who do I want to be? How do I define this freedom?

It sounds like I am on a holiday. I am not. A friend recently said to me: “I like your freedom.” while that was very cute and I had to admit, that I love my freedom above almost anything in life it made me think. Especially, after I got a similar remark from another friend: “It really feels like you are doing something right in your life, just roaming around, being free and follow the flow.”

An encounter on my cycling trip to France answered my stumbling answer to his question, what I was doing, with: “That sounds like you doing the right thing.”

Those reactions from people reassure me indeed, yes they get me even more excited about the things I already love doing, meanwhile they also make me think.

Which part of my life do they see? The good one. It isn’t always that glorious, of course not, no life is. I value my freedom above most things and it comes with a price. It is far from easy and meanwhile it might look like I am on a constant holiday, never working and just refusing any adult responsabilities. That is rarely how it really goes.

When I get up at 5, not because someone tells me to, or because I need to be somewhere in time I can only rely on my own motivation or discipline. No one there to tell me I have to. No one there to remind me to write, read, keep learning and building my life. There are days where I swim in an ocean of not belonging to one thing, no word to describe my life. No collegues that are sitting in the same boat.

When I am not motivated or when I don’t see the results, there is no one there to blame. But myself, so I have to take the roll of the critique and the motivator, have to be kind and disciplined at the same time. It is far from easy nevertheless the accomplishment I get from it, when I do, is the best feeling in the world.

When I get the sense of being in the right place at the right time with the right people or by myself, just not getting over how amazing this life is. How it all turns out right if you are willing to put the effort and the attention. How everything becomes beautiful it you get the right amount of love and discipline together.

When I came here, the flower that attracted my attention most, was a purple one I have to smile when I read the name of it: “Purpur-Liebesgrass” (purple-love-grass).

Maybe thats what I do. Figure out how I can be the best version of myself in order to be able to attract the best version of life around me. That might sound cheesy to some, un-responsable to others, weird and crazy to a few more and if it sounds inspiring to just one person, well then I have achieved more than I dare to ask for.

“What about you, what do you do with your life?”

…and how do you answer, when you get asked that question?

Thank you for passing by, enjoy your week and your life, it’s a pleasure to have you around!

All photos and words are owned by ©kesityu taken and written by myself.