Ever since I can remember I wanted to make the world a better place and that type of commitment required full-on seriousness from me, so at the ripe age of 7 I decided to be serious.
I have no memories of having fun as a kid, goofing around or merely being silly since fun wasn’t allowed in my state of seriousness. A lack of childhood fun turned me into an obsessive workaholic adult. The excessive work didn’t always mean heaps of money quite the opposite. I was tired more often than not; lack of focus and goals was present in my daily existence. Even though I was bloody good at what I was doing, I had severe difficulties asking for a statuary pay rise in fear that I was taking that money away from someone who needed it more than me.
For most of my adult life, I honestly thought that life was supposed to be confusing, unfocused and full of unfulfilled dreams. But I was wrong, so very wrong.
In my late 30’s I realised that facing reality when I was 20 was pretty impossible. In my 20’s I found myself not thinking about the future, planning or analysing my decisions. I honestly followed my heart’s desires; I stuck to my beliefs while trying to “make it” regardless of the number of countless hours I spent in front of my computer doing pointless tasks while watching time fly past in front of my eyes and my life slipping through my fingers.
I didn’t think my small, unimportant actions had any consequences for me.
My 30’s arrived sooner than I could imagine.
It was only then when I started noticing all the magazines and newspapers focusing on the youngsters in their 20’s, the “hot” people under 30 who have made it ‘cos… “the millionaires under 30…” , “top … under 30”. Enough is enough!!!
That was the real clash for me. My expectations, dreams and beliefs did not reflect my everyday reality.
I believed so much in magic happening in my 20’s that it left me with hardly any hope in my 30’s.
In my 20’s I was so secure and comfortable within the tiny circle of comfort I’d created around myself that anything outside of that comfort zone could easily throw me off my carefully maintained illusion of a balanced life.
However, 30’s is a different kind of animal altogether and it required me to change my beliefs and adjust my dreams to live fully and happily without prolonged unhappiness connected to the fact that
I have not made my dreams come true but instead spent shit lots of time and energy trying to do something without conviction.
Only recently I discovered that 30’s is all about starting to live, fully, sincerely and honestly. The irony in all that is that I have no idea how much time I have left.
I used to be an expert at postponing happiness for later after I reach this or that goal.
Whenever I look back to my 20’s I know I was unhappy, with dissatisfaction luring from every corner. My desire to follow my dreams was strong but my fear to venture outside of my comfort zone much stronger.
I was like a mountain stuck in the same spot unable to break free from the prison I had created around my disillusion of working for a better and conscious future society.
I got to the point where I was trying to prove to people around me that I was good and I was enough, even though I was one of the top security experts in the world. To me, it meant nothing apart from being overworked and underpaid while trying to explain to the people I was providing cyber security to that watching porn on governmental computers is not going to fly under the radar for long.
It wasn’t until my mid 30’s that I had no choice but to follow what was inside of my soul.
I know that most people in my position would have chosen the comfort of the everyday routine, but the nagging, dissatisfaction bordering on depression was too overwhelming to let it slip unnoticed into the realms of never-ending darkness.
For a long time I was scared to hack and leak information, or maybe I wanted to believe that the world would change slowly and finally choose the progressive side of history. But soon enough I became too impatient to wait for the awakening that wasn’t going to happen without some significant social movement.
Once I knew and accepted my life purpose, I became happy, relaxed, ready to listen and be open to whatever life was going to throw at me.
I never had a family, my relationships were brief and very uneventful, I had a few sex buddies but no one close enough to make me change my mind or rethink my decision to throw myself into the short and unknown future.
The change didn’t happen overnight I had gradually grown into the idea that being a passive observant of world events wasn’t my deepest desire. Besides I knew pretty well that in my position and with my skill sets I could try to move society into a more progressive future.
I do hope that someone else will be able to pick up where I left off and fight for innovation, progress (but not progress for the sake of capital gain) and a fairer future for us all.