The art of learning

I am 28 years old. Perhaps when you read this, I will be 100 years old, death and cremated somewhere in the world but well. A little dramatic touch for a non-dramatic story, because we all need a bit of drama in our lives, right? No, it is most certainly wrong. It is 2020, the year we got a pandemic called Corona. A year of changes for so many of us, I included. For a while, I had been slightly unsatisfied with my job. I have been working as Account Manager (or some other fancy similar names as my Resume states) for more than five years. Some companies I liked more than others, some tasks were more satisfactory than others, some days were more exciting than others — a common work grind of a day job. But the reality was that I was never fully satisfied. Well, I do not assume that a perfect state of satisfaction is possible to achieve, but at least you should feel slightly thrilled about whatever you are doing. In my past jobs, I often felt my analytical and creative thinking were sinking the more I was pitching “We are the best in the industry, in the world, your life saviour, money, money, money”. The money part is also very ironic, as I am closer to be a hippie than a shopping queen. So basically, none of the small talks I was often doing would be part of my world, sometimes not even in my (actually huge) interests range. After five years, I decided that it was time to move on. Or at least, that is what I am trying right now, not sure yet it is going to work but I am full of hopes and dreams. Without proper clarity about the “What is next” question, that in my case can go from wildlife photographer to writer, from biologist to mathematician, I decided to quit my previous office job anyway. I went travelling for a couple of months afterwards. It was supposed to be for a few months, but some sort of divine force decided to send a pandemic to mother Earth. I m sorry World, it was all my fault. A little pandemic was needed to give me a lesson and put my life together, but you did not have to suffer for me! And by some sort of force, I did not mean God of course. It is mostly “ a force” of our stupidity misusing animals and what not but let me leave this hot topic for another thread… To sum up, I quit my job, no plan on what would be the next career step, went travelling, a pandemic happened, goodbye travelling, hello hundreds of (some would even say thousands) possible new steps through a global crisis. Thank you global health and economic crisis to narrow down a few fields from the neverending list of options though. Through quarantine, in the inspirational environment of four walls surrounding my thoughts and myself, it hit me. Perhaps the whole pandemic could give me a lesson and an opportunity to change what I wanted to change. Perhaps instead of a rock in my way, it was a motivator to pursue a new path, a new aspiration, a new career, new learnings, new ways of living. And that is what I am aiming for at the moment. A career change to broaden my knowledge. I am not aiming for the change that will answer all my questions and give me a perfect life. But, at least, a positive change, a change I believe in — in any case, I do not believe in the idealistic view of one life one path, so I am sure I will jump again in the future, I will focus more on another of my interests and perhaps even find new passions. We learn from experience. Therefore, I do not believe there is an end of the tunnel for interests, changes, aspirations, passions. If you plan your next ten years, have a handful of new experiences and still stick to the plan, will you not be underachieving and flatten your experience and learning curve that could be so much steeper? Coming back to my case, I decided to pursue further education, to increase my knowledge in a field and get my confidence and motivation back to fight towards a new career path. Ironically once again, I studied financial mathematics ten years ago. Then decided to go towards management/ international business and work in the management field as mentioned. Now, once again, surprisingly or not but not certainly logically, I am trying to come back to data and become a data analyst (or whatever fancy related name teens give it these days). I believe I am one of those who had school easy, and once I started working and opened my good student bubble to endless opportunities, I did not know where I wanted to start. I ended up starting in management and now indeed want to come closer to that starting point of my student’s life. It is scary to come back to be a student at the moment. It is scary to create once again studying routines that have been for so long dormant. But it is also exciting. Just the technical test to get admitted to a school brought up the excitement of thinking critically, logically and analytically once again at a high level and that gave me the feeling it is the right path for me. At least for now, I will see what happens in a few years. Nevertheless, I am indeed afraid. I am afraid to fail after building up a different career, I am afraid I am older than I think to learn. I am afraid that after a few weeks, I will think coding is not for me. I am afraid I will miss the contact with clients. I am afraid I will not be good enough. But I am more afraid of having all these points stopping me from trying. I believe learning and growing should always be part of life, whereas it becomes harder or not to learn throughout the years, whereas it becomes harder or not to jump onto a different career path. But, despite all the fears, I want to jump and hopefully succeed in this next step in my life.