identity

Now, that I have moved forward from being a full time student to a full time employee faster than ever expected, life suddenly appears as totally different from previous imaginations. The job is just average; payment as well; work leaves not much time for my thesis which still has to be begun. The careful attempt to family life means waking up early and going to bed late, investing much for an uncertain future of a more than complicated relationship.

A family that always sleeps?

unwinding under the stars and coconut trees – a nightly swim before going back to the city

One of the good sides of the job is the inspection trips. I have been to the ocean for three days in order to visit 14 resorts, to get to know the room categories, the facilities and the destination itself. The salty wind, the palm leaves rustling in the sea-breeze, the crushing waves outside of my bungalow, that all made me remember Bali. I am in tourism now, but still my office is located in the central business district of a cosmopolitan Asian city in a newly industrializing country. I would prefer being outside, where the image of a paradise is realized. But unfortunately product management is just one of the components of the job.

the open bathroom of one of the resorts in our product range

The last weeks in the office were characterized by learning how we operate. It is pure operations, no strategy, no concepts, nothing related to the wider scope; nothing of what I have always learnt to take into consideration during my studies over the past 5 years. I have to be careful not to get stuck in this average world. Weren’t it my friends who always said I was a bit unorganized but therefore had the best ideas? Maybe with a niche personality one should rather try to fill a niche job. Of course, this will be difficult to find.

the desire to work different – creating, rather than only selling concepts

Another point is that people in the business aren’t intellectual at all. That does not mean that they are not nice. But most of them have no sense for the issues we have been discussing with professors, fellows and friends over the past years. Things concerning the future of people, and things with a more spiritual content than improving service quality for the benefit of the stupid mass. And thus, I also ask myself whether shared interest is the basis for future friendships, as some people I know believe, or is it, as Remi recently said, that the shared interest is for many people just a means to create inauthentic friendships. I want to say that I really ask myself in which job and in which social environment I can become self-contented. Whatever the truth might be, I always knew that the result of my search is to find my own way of doing things, of working, of having relationships, of living and of self-realization.

artificial green - golf will definitely never challenge me

hotel inspections in Ho Chi Minh City - “Where is the hairdryer?”

Questions for meaning and identity coming along with a new chapter in live already arose with the red tie in Bangkok. Now, that I realize that I am totally self-dependent, these questions gain more weight. Now, that I see that every minute you work does suddenly count, that you are responsible for yourself, that you finally should not ask dad anymore in case you run out of money, that you have no sponsoring organization for your education anymore, that you are much more dependent on people and institutions that in the privileged position as a student. Studying has much of the character of a freelance job – something fitting my character very much. In Bangkok, Moji told me I would have to open my heart. I am not sure whether I have done this already and in how far my judgements are well reflected. But I have always been following my feelings, and leant that being consequent is the best way. I have to clear my mind and should try to be consequent now, do what is good for me and good for the others.

when time is rare, then bustling cities become more boring than ordinary ones

a Cao Dai Temple ceremony visited – one of our “products”

Maybe one just has to be brave, not wait until dreams come true but make them come true immediately. Just go there where one wants to be, not taking the long way round. Maybe it is possible to create one’s dream, one’s job, one’s life. If one really wants this, it might be possible. Martina wrote that beginning to hear your own voice is the first step and that it will al work out perfectly. I trust her. It was her words that gave me energy when I really needed it. It remembered me my dreams which I had somehow postponed over the past months, the crazy ideas that even seem feasible if one really lives for them. Right in the moment that I write this text, I realize that those dreams are already kept in the vision board on my desktop. However, I am just following a part of it, and I am not sure if some of them might be realistic. Others are, for sure. Somehow, I have to amend my direction, refocus, and be brave enough in the upcoming months to follow the right way…

reunions - Trang and Doctor in our “historic” bánh trắng place

Doctor and me… like total idiots