To this day I’m not sure where inside me I bore the courage to fly to Mexiko right after having finished highschool. I’d just spent my teen years in lockdown and was absolutely ready for a change. Spanish has been my passion since I started studying it at age 12, but working and speaking in my third language daily, presented a challenge. Over the course of 8 months, I backpacked around Central America, visiting Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala and Nicaragua and it turned out to be the best decision I could have made — ever.

Being a purely optimistic and happy kid, I had never felt anything close to depressed. But the feeling that hit me after returning to my home country, Austria, after experiencing a different life for almost a year, could be defined as depression. It had been the first time living away from my family, having no one to ask for their opinion or permission and feeling absolute freedom. As exciting as all of this is for a teenager — it turned out to be a complete change of perspective too. When I came home, full of energy, vibrating at very high frequencies, ready to share my stories, I expected the others to be the same. And then I realized: working people don’t have time for these dreams; they smile weakly at you, for your optimistic view on everything and snore a laughter when you tell them, you want more of this freedom you just tasted. “Grow up, kid!”, they tell you. “Welcome to the real world.” “Things work differently in real life.”

STOP. What do you mean “the real world”, “in real life”?? What do you think I did for the past year? I lived. And proudly I am able to say I lived to the fullest! I refuse to believe, that just because you did not travel when you were young, I cannot continue with this lifestyle. For a year I tried to live in the capitalist, materialistic world we’ve created. Don’t you realize something’s off?? Completely off? Many of us work 8 out of 16 hours a day, 5 of 7 days a week and 11 of 12 months a year, in a job we don’t like, to spend money on things that create short term happiness, that shall compensate for our unfulfilled life. You get my point don’t you?

Dharma. Ikigai. Two words with the same meaning. your reason for being.Living a life true to you. You have been gifted this life for a reason. You have a mission to complete here and we all have a voice inside ourselves talking to us. It wants to bring us closer to who we are meant to be. Closer to who we already are, deep down inside ourselves. Both words are composed of 4 parts: what you are good at. what you love doing. what the world needs. what you can be paid for. When these 4 fields are overlapping and you’ve found your path, you will feel fulfilled, happy, needed, satisfied, comfortable but excited and generate enough money.

The Buddhists try to live true to their Dharma and the Ikigai is part of the japanese philosophy. There are countless cultures to learn from on this planet; endless mentors to be met and experiences to be lived. If I can create my own reality, why not study scripts and philosophies firsthand, that have been passed on for generations; cherish the taste of unknown dishes on my tongue; reward my eyes with unseen landscapes and let my soul be enriched by new cultures?

Would we ever tell a kid to stop dreaming? NO. We encourage their dreams of becoming astronauts, sailors, firemen and -women, authors, travellers. As they grow older we start to tell them “Sure, follow your dreams, but just not like that”. “Grow up, life’s hard and the time to dream is over.” NO. I refuse to believe that. The only regrets we’ll have on our death bed, will most likely be things we didn’t do, conversations we didn’t have and adventures we didn’tlive. If we don’t try out what works best for us and limit ourselves to one or two things, we might be missing out on amazing versions of ourselves. The rich, the successful, the fulfilled and happy people don’t have to be the others. There exists no imaginary wall between them and you, you are them. You only have to believe in yourself enough. Shatter that wall separating you from your dreams. Don’t wait for that something! It will never come, unless you decide to change your life and run after your dreams. You’re responsible for your own happiness, so start fighting for it. People who seem happy and calm, live a fulfilled life, because they chose themselves over everybody else.

In short, be as much as possible! Once we break down the walls that surround the fort of our limitation, we stand before a horizon of infinite possibilities.