by Gesine Reinhardt

Back when I was about to finish high school, all exams written and just waiting for the final papers to be in my hands, I felt a lot of relief. Finally, there was no need to be scared of black-outs, failure and sleep-deprivation anymore. In fact, I could do all the things I always wished to do but never found the time for: meeting friends as often as I want, taking my time for creative projects that no one would give me a mark for and just… relax.

It is a great feeling to look back on your own success and to be proud of the stressful process which brought you there. However, the more time passed by, the more I realized that with this big life-section ending, another one is supposed to start and whenever I looked in the future, my mind kind of went blank. If you are like me, someone who hasn’t really planned out your life because you just couldn’t decide what you want to pursue, you may feel a bit queasy looking forward to basically nothing.

Especially when you are in an environment where everyone else around you seems to know so well what to do with their life (spoilers: even these people might end up doing something completely different once their first dream ends up not being as sparkly as they imagined it). The time of figuring yourself and your goals out, finding your own purpose, is often quite a rough and restless journey.

What I personally had to realize was that for me it’s better to try things out, to throw myself into situations – no matter how scary they seem. In the end, I could always experience something different than the scenario I had in my imagination before.

In order to do this, I could have just stayed in Germany and start studying something that seems interesting. It would have already been a change since it is something different than experiencing school life in the same city like I did my whole life before. But I kind of wanted a more drastic change to get some fresh wind.

So I moved out for the first time. Went to Romania. To stay for seven months in that country I’ve never seen before. To live and work with the same five people I’ve never met before. To communicate in English on a daily basis which I also never did before. Knowing that I would work with children for the first time. And the funny thing is, those were just the few things I could actually prepare myself for. Once you get into that new environment you’ll face a lot more first moments than expected.

At the stage where I am now, I can say that it feels really good to just say yes to as many things as possible, experience them and use them as something to reflect on afterwards, no matter if it felt incredibly good or bad. Even if something didn’t feel comfortable, it was just a moment that’s eventually passing by and often made me find out something new about myself.

So if you are in a similar situation like I was before I came here – maybe done with school or another section in your life and you find yourself stuck and caught up in your thoughts without knowing what to do, I would highly recommend you to go volunteering – or any other random decision that will mix up your life. I feel like stepping out of my comfort zone has brought me so much closer to finding my dreams than my imagination ever has.