pvo36

#8 – Goals

Everyone has goals – some are more determined towards those and others do like to go with the flow. I'm kind of thinking about this since I moved to Germany as my start was not the best one – in terms of material safety and the country I was born – but soon enough i was moving to Germany where everything was so different – i had difficulties but it seemed that i spoke very good German to get to Gymnasium as they called it. Just for the record, I would not want to miss in the world my time in Ukraine – as it gave me those valuable assets which were hidden for long time.

In school I did not had yet goals but i was surrounded by very extra ordinary people – 15 years later I can certainly say that some of those guys and girls become doctors or C-Level executives before reaching 35 – which is impressive.

I did fail the final exam or Abitur – i had to repeat a year, which in the end did question my determination, what do i want in life? I would say back than I was more guided by naivety and curiosity. I got the best out of the second round, but i felt bad – as was did not meet expectations and i did not understand a lot of things, especially those things, which society expects you to behave – what will people think? I never really gave a fuck about it, but i had to learn how to play by those rules but not to obey to them.

My next big pitfall was in 2012 when i failed my final exam macro economics, a subject which is quite theoretical but interesting – it seems I was not made for it. But before this I had 4 times re-exam of higher mathematics, i did really fight hard – as usually you can do it only 3 times but with a crazy story and great writer as best friend I could lure out one more. But it supposed not to be – I remember this day, it was actually August 2012 somewhere and I was walking down in Leipzig and called my brother, to let him know. For me the world collapsed, how could I not stay at university?

I was defeated, for around a day – than I started to realized all the way I did so far and how less i was talented but determined to get somewhere. I had a plan B already back than as Math was always a damocles sword above me – i did switch to University of applied sciences – more practical and way easier. It was a way to stil get my B.A. in Business Administration. I did my Bachelor in less than 1,5 year, basically 3 semesters incl. Bachelor Thesis and half year Internship. It was not easy but i was determined and I enjoyed the game – i did want to prove anyone but myself that i can do it – and I DID IT!

I learned a lot about myself and also about my environment, i had and have great friends – even we do not see each other that often and I miss them a lot – but they were part of my journey back than, they did support me and I'm loyal to that day. A lot of people who i met and who stayed for a while in my life always said that i should stay as i'm – and I start to understand now what it means and which big assets I have – as loyalty, patience and listening but also the great gift of making people not only laugh but feeling understood. This is something which i never would think back in the days as unique skills as everyone tried to scream louder to get attention.

I also fulfilled my goal to go abroad and since 2016 i'm living in Belgium. I did want to have a family and i have great girlfriend (by law wife) and two wonderful little boys. I do appreciate life everyday – its not easy. I also see more clear now what it means to have family and to keep them close.

Maybe sounds all a bit to bla bla soft shizzle? Its part of me and especially those voices in my head started working together, so that is an important part of my development, that process that will continue until I die.

I have ambitions but they are different compared what society expects and Goals which might be not goals in terms of goal setting, because i did achieved what i wanted – and I have enough. I want to get a small house somewhere in Ukraine and a Boat to sail.

What i did learn is that my main driver is to help people, be understood and also curiosity, as this makes the world so much more worth to explore – there is so much to learn out there!

But first a Goal – 100 posts in a year :)

T

#7 -Anger

It is few days since the last post but there was a lot to do, so I kind of just had no time. But today i will write about an emotion again, especially about anger. As fellow dad i can say that since the birth of my boys i feel more alive in more intense way – for the good things but also for bad things.

Due the whole shit fuckery of Covid and short term restriction within Belgium and visiting other countries like Netherlands, which is currently red – we did book a short glamping weekend with the boys to be a bit in nature and enjoy simple life. It was two weeks ago, so not that far in the future, to avoid situations like it is now. But not that simple as it seems – if you are more than 48h in a country where the code is RED, we need to do a PCR test on first and 7th day with quarantine before the first result comes in. Crazy shit – but somehow after cooling down I do understand.

Anyway i did try to move our vacation to another period, where we would not have to go into quarantine and got those poor women from customer service who explained in good dutch why they cant move it – here the communication got emotional vs rational. Her reasons that the borders are not closed and also the travel is not forbidden but highly discouraged... so actually its our own risk. Niks aan te doen as you say in dutch.I did not appreciate it in the moment itself...

But to get back to the subject – I had this call on my way back in the car and i actually did cut a car quite sharp in a turn, where i was just angry... if anything would have happened I would be 100% to blame. This was in pure anger, which is way more vivid than it was before. I kind of admit that i didnt give a fuck about the other person in the car and this is something that retrospectively speaking is not only selfish but also irresponsible towards my wife and the kids. My learning out of it, if this kind of emotion come again, ill not drive – ill not do anything which can harm me or others, it is not worth.

T

#6 Sailing

Actually i wanted to write about solitude yesterday but i did forgot, ill come back to this topic somewhere the next chapters, as its an important one in our more and more (dis)connected world.

I just finished the book from Richard Bode “First you have to row a little boat” its about life lessons which he could associate with sailing like there is no straight way to life goals and more a zig zag course or that you have to let your kids do their own experiences and not put your learning on them, they have to do their own mistakes. Somehow i started already reading this book with the background as it was recommended if you want to start with sailing... i have to admit I first like to get a bit theory before jumping in the field.

My sailing experience is limited to a half day sailing with a skipper which I got from my friends for my birthday few years ago. It was awesome, i really did enjoy the peace and also the atmosphere. Somehow magic, maybe its the connection to my childhood to be born and raised in a harbor city. I'm happy with a 16 years break to live in the hilly area in Germany to be back to the sea side. Its still few kilometers but its reachable within one hour.

As with kids its kind of difficult to start such hobby or even buy a boat, but ill see it a big project where my boys maybe will also enjoy it, I will not force them though. Neither way we have a sailing pond almost next to our future house, so i hope ill be able to start practicing there.

My dream would be first to get to England by boat, best go further to Ireland – as I read its beautiful route and if ambitious enough to do a ride over the big pond – but those are far ideas, which might come true. We will see

#5 – Brexit and buying books

Its Tuesday and time to look for the weekend :) No worries this one will be less factual than the one before. Currently I'm working within customs industry for a SaaS company and especially the whole Brexit caused a lot of major issues on this side and also on the other side of the pond.

To give you a real life use case – i try to get into wood works as we bought a new house and ill need to do some repairs myself and honestly as office clerk its great to do something with my hands. I did discover Paul Sellers few months ago and this guy is great to explain how you can do with few tools great things. Its not only great to do it myself but also watch his no nonsense videos where he just want to share knowledge and he has more than enough of it for one life.

But to come back to Brexit – i did order a book about basic wood working tools from Paul Sellers, the company is in UK – which means the import duties are due. I did receive a letter from the post office asking for 29€ additionally to my order for 40€ – which makes the book cost 69€ euro, which is ridiculously high. If I see how we create shipments and declarations in the company, how much administration is behind – its crazy and huge los for GB. The price for freedom is always high.

The price of the book itself is ok for me, its worth for me as I do like spend money on books but to see this as an UK business – its not really worth to import them goods but also customers would certainly hesitate to order things if they just double the price. In anyway ill avoid to buy anything from UK as this is really expensive until this got settled and a potential agreement with EU was made.

#4 – kids and sleep

I have two boys which are both between 4 and 24 months. I love them more than life and it's not easy, no one said it will be sunshine all the time or at least on some days. But the one thing that I really struggling is the lack of sleep.

They say that kids are like a mirror who shows the true self of someone. And they do.. especially the last 4 weeks were really hard in terms of sleep and sleep through.

Since our oldest got a toddler bed because he could climb out, we have to find new balance as his hours of sleep shifted by 1-2h later where he stil requires full attention. It's like change management on a pace of a unicorn scaleup but with people who can't talk yet. And often he cames in the night into our bed and vandalize before falling asleep.

First we try to get his rhythm back to more normal like 7PM but we are far from that... Today it was 8:45.

We found that routine helps a lot especially his mother is good in it. I'm more the creative with this kind of stuff, which is not helpful but I take all other things (we divide everything 50/50). My wife is architect so she is also in a differy way creative ( more with real nice results, less bs like me).

On the routine she has a very nice phrase. If it's routine I don't have to think about. I'm often think about it in last month's, because it's kind of true.

Secondly working with incentives works also partly as he lost all his toys from his room for bad behaviour. We have a deal that he stays in bed.

We will somehow get there but this needs time. I guess I'll enjoy the ride than 😉

If someone has experience to share especially about sleep of very active kids, always welcome.

T

#3 – A walk in Mechelen

Today we went for a walk with our both kids, between 4 months and 23 months. The little one could residue on his mom during the whole period, with some moments of full awareness besides this he enjoyed the free air to take a nap.

The big one was 80% of the road on his mule and servant aka me. We did buy a kids bag 2 years ago and we could already use it few times – Deuter Kids comfort. Its a relatively expensive investment and we did think about it a lot before putting around 300 euros in. We do not regret it at all and can really recommend it to parents who would like to hike as they did before kids and also enjoy the atmosphere.

We walked for around 5 km around few little lakes in Mechelen, Belgium. As the terrain is not suited for buggies, this was a really good opportunity to use it again. Besides this we could really enjoy the nature – our big one starts talking and he saw few cow and other small animals which he always could name, it is such a great experience if you see how they start abstract thinking for what they see in a book and how it looks like in reality.

Back in the days before kids I would call this a bit boring experience, as its not long (5km) either its a unique location (like 2km from the city) but now I appreciate the simple things and just live in this moment without any expectations and enjoying it.

It was a good day, looking forward to the next one

T

#2 – de-google experience #1

Today was a rainy day and during my ride back I ended up again on the de-googling editor. I'm already since 2 years slowly trying to get off the big kraken ship aka Google.

Certain things I learned so far

#1 get a good alternative for your email, best an own domain which makes you later flexible to move within services like protonmail, tutanota or others

#2 start small, see what is your comfortable pace. It's not that you will be invisible anyway... Im busy already for 2 years and I'm far from finished

#3 if you move Gmail, create forwards and give them labels within the new interface – it will help you to get your services from one email to another

#4 backups – if you use gdrive, photos – this is a not easy one. A Nas, raspberry with SSD or encrypted are possible choices. I have to admit I'm struggling with this one – tending towards a Synology with 4+tb

#5 pihole – maybe not fully helpful but to understand how much you are actually getting in the rabbit hole I installed in my raspberry pihole to see also my WiFi communication. I'm surprised that almost 25 percent going to ads, telemetry and other non essential stuff.

#7 – android – this is a fully open one. I did not look into fdroid or anything but I d know they exist

#8 – vanced. I'm just allergic to soo much ads in YouTube and it's part of gempire.

Those are potentially my learnings so far.

I would like to get to Ubuntu the next year's (I have double boot anyway) as I'm not really big fan of windows and I'm too cheap for Mac. Beside this I'll continue my journey for my 2 Gmail accounts moving to my protonmail with a NAS as backup solution.

That's it for today

#1 – Or what to write about

After i read it on fosstodon – i was a bit stumbled, as i remember similar challenge where you write everyday one page. Anything

I did it in 2016 i think and it was an interesting experience, as it especially showed where i was those days – exciting times of being single and certainly in not best place. I just moved to Antwerp for an internship... 2 kids and a house later, i guess ill stay here. Its a great city – I can recommend it for a visit for weekend – not only for beers, but also for culture, harbor – hookers if you are into this, but this would be another story.

To come back, ill try to write 100 articles in a time span of a year, no pressure to perform – just experiment and learn some new things about myself.

I'm a curious mind, so cant promise it will be boring.

So here we go – #100DaysToOffload