Crazy cat, wise cat, good cat

Stefan Katz... El Salvador has changed u

2008-08-07T09:48:00.004+02:00

This post is on the magic of El Salvador... or better that I understand myself much better now 1.5 months after I left Switzerland.

I realized that I have a certain inconsistency in my argumentation. And those who know me know that I hate inconsistencies. But still I held this one up for a very long time.... Basically this is a very personal post and I was struggling for about two hours now whether I should post it or not. I decided to write it anyway because of two reasons:

1) I would like to tell all the people who had discussions with me on this subject: You were right!!!
2) I would also give some input to those who were disappointed in this area over and over again that there is something more out there. There is not only deception and pain, there is also the possibility that it actually works out just fine.

This post is, how could it be different, about love. And I'm afraid I will sound like a silly guy, and this is something I hate as well, but that's how I see the thing.

First I would like to put together some of the basic principles that guide my life (amongst many, but these are the ones concerning this issue)...

1) You'll never know until you have tried.
2) Fate doesn't exist. It's all about what you do with your life.
3) Things worth fighting for usually prove their worth by fighting back.

When it comes to love, I broke all of those principles. I am not very proficient when it comes to feelings, in fact I don't think I ever felt much for anyone. Whether or not, it doesn't really matter. Feelings are not my strong suit. My history is full of events when I wanted to make things happen, when I wanted to discover that area of life, when I consciously thought that I have to move in a certain direction to make it happen. It never worked. I had people liking me and I got ran away from that. I did everything wrong so far... I definitely have commitment issues, yes, but that's something I can work on...

My theory has been so far that I got nothing left to try. I never felt love for a girl and therefore never will. I protected myself from that by not getting into situations involving girls. I had wonderful conversations because of my views because I have a lot of friends who wanted to convince me that I'm wrong. But I put action behind the word, but for an opportunity guy who seizes opportunities when they come up for whatever is possible, it has been hard not to have these opportunities come up.

Love is just another way for fate to screw us, was my favourite quote. When someone told me that they are going to marry soon, my reply was: "My condolences..." (my views on marriage haven't changed, by the way, but who knows, everything changes apparently...

I wasn't honest with myself. I don't believe in fate. So the quote is bullshit in the first place. And it's not about being delivered to fate. It's about making things happen yourself. If love is a tool for life/fate/whatever to screw us up, it's up to us to make the opposite happen and not get screwed. And if it was only to screw us up, what about the moments of happiness before the break up. What about having someone that you can share everything unconditionally. What about waking up sunday morning and stay in bed just staring to the ceiling breathing in the wonderful scent of the person next to you. If this is a way to screw us up, fate should probably reconsider its methods.

Yeah, but eventually it ends... That's my reply to pepole saying that. But maybe it does, maybe it doesn't... You'll never know until you tried. There are enough examples where love lasted. And even if it didn't, there is something after love called friendship. There doesn't need to be a messy end. It can be beautiful to have a friend that you can still share everything with. Going through this whole process might be painful but, if handled properly, it can add value to all our lives.

I found myself saying in one of these conversations: Yeah, maybe love is a way for fate to screw us, but I'm not willing to give in and let someone else rule my life. I strongly believe that I'm the master of my own fate and I have been teaching that to people all around me. It's just about your approach. My approach is, and has been, with the exception of this particular area of life, optimism. I want to try things because I believe that I can make them happen. There is not one single reason why that shouldn't be possible with love. What if it works out just fine...

With feeling and commitment issues, this might prove particularly hard for me. But God didn't give me these issues to leave me alone and screwed. He wanted me to grow. He wanted me to challenge myself and try and learn. I am not someone who gives up even though I nearly did give up on love. Eventually I'll have my mind blown away and consider flying all across the planet to see one person. There must be someone out there who disregards these flaws and says: Stefan, cut the bullshit... Until that happens, I will remain optimistic and go for it...

I kind of get the feeling that all that mindset was mainly an excuse for not exposing myself. Saying that I got feelings for someone is more or less the most difficult thing for me. Having had this mindset protected me well from that... But that's over now... I'm again in charge of all my life...

The two people I have been talking about hopefully know by now who they are. All I can say is: Thank you... I owe you a coffee...

Cheers
Stefan

One months in paradise - only 11 to go...

2008-07-29T15:19:00.001+02:00

Hello again...

I just came back from my MC weekend with my team and I must say: I loved it. I have a excellent team of three people. We had a lot of fun.

It’s been amazing to see my two girls plan, feedback each other and me, do Ice-breakers, all on their own. They might not have the deepest knowledge on AIESEC, but they cover for that with a relentless enthusiasm and a huge commitment. It has been truly inspiring to see them work.

I know that a team of three people is very small to run an MC for a whole country. That’s why we have an equally motivated NST that takes care of Talent Management and Finance.

My life in El Salvador is amazing. I still don’t own a bed, but I have two new families… It’s amazing how everybody here treats me like I have been living here all my life. There are huge differences in the way of thinking between Salvadorians and me, but in the end we all agree that we want to have fun. A guy actually asked me how long I was here, to which I answered one month. He answered me: “Oh, I thought you were here for longer, the way you interact with these people. So you came here before?” My answer was of course no. He said that he was amazed…

In the little free time that I have (which is virtually no free time at all) I’m reading this amazing book by Stephen King “On writing”… Whoever wants to bring something to paper, this book is worth gold for you… and it’s extremely amusing…

My other project, my bachelor thesis is not advancing at the speed I would like it to… so I’ll have to focus on that now for the next two weeks… It’s like writing a story and I should be able to write a good one…

Another thing is that I have a very interesting experience here in El Salvador. It involves driving… when I came here my friends were like: Do you think that you’ll be able to drive here in El Salvador, because it’s loco… and I was like: of course I can… So they started letting me drive with the result that I had to name a complaint department that ignores all the complaints dutifully… I dubbed myself the most reckless driver in El Salvador…

This is the first week of execution for AIESEC in El Salvador… let’s make it a good one…

Cheerio

Stefan

Being a nomad

2008-07-14T23:41:00.003+02:00

Ok, I admit, it’s about time that I write something about my adventure in El Salvador. And I think that now right after a conference is the right moment to do so.

People

I’ve been living in El Salvador for the last 2.5 weeks without my own room, my own place to be and that was great. Yes, you heard right, I loved it… people here are so amazingly friendly and open. That starts with the parents of my host. I didn’t know anybody of that family and they took me in, making the most amazing breakfasts every morning (it’s a shame that I haven’t shown up there for a week now due to the prep for the conference). I learned that “mi casa e su casa” is not only a cool sentence I picked up watching Pulp Fiction but that it is a principle really lived by these people. It’s amazing… Everywhere I go I’m greeted friendly (I still have to determine whether that is because or even though I’m chelito)… All parents of my friends here are just simply adorable…

Country

The landscape is different from what I am used to. What they call mountains are what we Swiss refer to as hills… The conference was just next to a Volcano on one of the hills. It was really beautiful. Vegetation is different too, trees different, climate way too hot, it always rains… I’m rejoicing every time when it starts raining in the evening because that means that the temperature drops to a acceptable level. During the conference the temperature was actually dropping to the low twenties (you know, because we were in the “mountains”) and everybody was wearing two sweaters, three t-shirts and a hat while I enjoyed the agreeable temperatures in shorts and a T-Shirt (that’s another story, I’ll come to that).

Culture

I’ve made myself already a name of being “European”. People around me call me European every time when I’m my direct and honest self… I tried to explain to them that I’m special in that, that I practice a very high level of directness, but they seem to attribute that behaviour to all Europeans… I had already many, many discussions about me becoming nice… I tried to lower the expectations but the people around me seem to think that there is actually still hope. We’ll see about that… In the meantime I enjoy the really spontaneous and touchy culture here, which is very much the way I like it… Having seen that 4 of the 5 finalists of the Miss Universe event were Latinas, I’m kind of wondering where they are hiding in every day life… hahahaha… no for real, the amount of beautiful women here is absolutely satisfactory…

AIESEC

We started off without an office, without money (well, 68 cents on the account), no company database, no knowledge, no structure, no plan… But we started off… and the amazing things is that we moved in two and a half weeks already so far… we have people coming every morning exactly at 8 (well with exceptions, some ppl need more sleep, right?) with a smile and the question: What can I do today? It’s amazing to see their spirit. People tell me that the difference is huge, but I don’t know, because we only are doing this for 2.5 weeks now… But people are telling me that they haven’t learned in the whole year as much as in these two weeks. This feedback makes me extremely happy. The conference is the other example. We had some organisational issues and this made the conference more of an improvised gathering with an agenda that we sometimes kept and sometimes didn’t. But the delegates enjoyed themselves a lot. It was amazing to see that spirit…

A side note: This was the first conferences I did with two T-Shirts, one shorts, and one pair of underpants and socks… This happened because we had a logistical breakdown and I couldn’t get my stuff before the conference because the room I stayed in was locked and I didn't have any key, so I only had with me the things I had on the day before the conference plus a T-Shirt of one of the delegates who helped me out… This just added to the improvisational part of the conferences… But it was a interesting experience…

So all in all, I can say that it is definitely a wonderful year that I’m just starting to experience… It will bring me far, I’m sure of it… I’m looking forward to the planning of this year with my team and all the bonding and teambuilding we will have. We will continue building knowledge in Exchange to cover another part of our activities… but ppl, watch out for El Salvador this term…

Cheers
Ejtefano

Football

2008-06-20T21:05:00.001+02:00

For all of you who have still not understood why Football is the best sport ever invented... well, here's the explanation... no further words necessary...

2008-06-19T09:22:00.000+02:00

I had my little lost in translation experience here, being stuck at Schiphol in Amsterdam for about 5 hours. I heard the message “Passenger X, travelling to Y, you are delaying the flight. Proceed to gate Z immediately. We will proceed unloading your luggage.” About a trillion times. I know now where the most comfortable seats are, I figured that I love these moving bands that run along the gate where you can get on and you don’t have to walk.

All in all I can say that I love airports. But not only because of the things mentioned or the flight attendants (women in uniform… :P), but especially because of the international athomsphere. There are so many different colors, types of clothing, behaviours to observe. It’s phantastic.

I enjoyed waiting here a lot, but still I wanna get on that plane… but there is still a huge line in front of the gate...

Final post

2008-06-19T09:15:00.000+02:00

Esta es mi post final hoy dia. I think after so many posts of today, even Gorjans RSS feeder won’t be hungry anymore.

I love airports. I know I’ve talked about that already, but I forgot to mention one important thing. They are fascinating to observe. I mean from a logistical point of view. I think being manager of an airport, where everything is interlinked and planes have to be ready as fast as possible would be a very special and interesting job.

Now a little outlook. I’m sitting here in the plane from Panama City to San Salvador. We’re probably gonna be late. But I feel like a child before Christmas. I know something good is going to happen, but I have no idea what that will be. I know I’m going to another country, but I have no idea how it looks like. It is going to be my conquest of paradise, the unknown. New people, new places, new activities…

And I think my caffeine immunity becomes slightly scary. I bought some sweets containing caffeine yesterday to stay awake while travelling. But even thought I nearly ate the whole package, I still fell asleep at every possible moment. I missed all of Cuba (I mean overflying it).

I hope that this experience will foster my belief in the good of people, that I can continue being open to people I don’t know. But so far I have made very good experiences with Salvadorian people. I really do not worry, I am just very excited.

Hola a todos

2008-06-19T09:13:00.000+02:00

Hola a todos

Estoy a Panama.

So much for spanish right now… It’s been a long day for now. My second longest day in my life. Only the one when I was flying to Anchorage was longer. But on the other hand I haven’t arrived yet and we don’t know what might still happen.

Weather isn’t that nice, lots of clouds. But I still got a decent view on the islands off the coast of Panama (Carribean Sea Side). They are amazing. I would love to go diving there. I hope I’ll have similar islands in ESAL. Getting out of the plane I had a temperature shock. I felt like pasta being cooked, very humid, very hot (29 degrees). But I’m excited.

All in all, there is a lot of déja vus. The water tabs for example are the same as in Alaska. And I’ve seen the Pacific again. I know that it’s only a rather large area of water as all the other oceans. But the fact being on the shores of the pacific again bring back lots of memories.

They have no bookshop in the whole airport, that was kinda unpleasant.

It gets dark here much earlier than in Switzerland. We’re closer to the equator, it’s obvious but it’s still fascinating how that changes your daily routine (not that I would have one today, going through 8 time zones), but I still did not expect it to get dark so fast.

Call it hope, but I can feel that there is a completely different vibe here. I get looked at differently, making a very good impression as American tourist… ;) This will be an amazing experience and challenge. But I am ready and very much looking forward to it.

I am extremely thankful that I got the opportunity to do this. And I’m even more thankful for all the support I experienced back home. This is nothing ordinary. You are all great!!!

From Heaven to Paradise

2008-06-19T09:10:00.001+02:00

Hola a todos

This is my last blog entry from Switzerland before (or better) while I’m leaving Switzerland.

First of all I would like to mention that this blog entry is destined to feed Gorjans RSS Feeder. Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I wrote my last entry.

The last couple of weeks were a blast. I realized that I love certain people much more than I anticipated. Typically for me, I realized that only when I was leaving them, but at least I did. Leaving isn’t that easy anymore. For me, having my personal freedom is very, very important and knowing that I’m kinda restricted in my departures is weird to me.

I wanted to thank all my friends for making my departure such a weird and new experience, for the joy and the laughter we shared, for the opinions and feedbacks you gave, for the hugs, for the kisses, for the discussions… I could go on…

I am pretty sure that I will have similar experiences with my new friends in ESAL, but it will be different and you all will have a certain place in my heart.

Now we just started…I leave my life in Swizerland behind me and it is kinda like the clouds down there. There have been up and downs, but I wasn’t myself if I wouldn’t have forgotten most of the downs already.

Hearing me talk about Swiss people and the country was not always a pleasure. At times I expressed my dislike of certain things in Switzerland quite stonrgly. I had to leave. But not only to get rid of these things, but also to redisover what is good in Switzerland.

All the ghings have their good side. I learne3d that when I was quite young around the age of 8 with the example of fliees. They are wuite annoying I found, but they help transform biological waste into earth again. Everything has its place. I haven’t quite found mine, but I hope I’ll get to travel all around the world in the search of it.

Next stop for now is El Salvador. A countfry with wonderful coffee.. I think I’m going to be very happy there.Chilling out at the beaches, enjoying the latin lifestyle, learning Spanish. It will be amazing.

Another thing that is amazing is the EURO. I think it was so far a great success. It is beautiful to see all these people walking thorugh Geneva, people from different countries singing together. It showed how much sport can bring us together. It was been a very non-violent experience so far. It’s been very well. And the dutch XP in Bern, which I unfortunately had to miss out on, has been impressive to look at… The Euro is kinda like an AIESEC party just with older people… ;P

Well, that’s all for now..

Leaders of the world

2008-03-07T13:22:00.002+01:00

As I haven’t been active for quite some time, I would like to come back with a post about leaders, that have had an influence or mean something special to me. This list is not complete and I hope I will add from time to time another leader. For now I will write about the following:

Jesus

What is so striking about Jesus as a leader is that he never faltered in his way and that he lived what he preached. He was incredibly true to himself. His message of peace and love he carried until the end. After some time I realized that there are certain things that I believe in and for these beliefs, I have to stand up and speak up. There are certain standards for which we have to endure anything to keep them up.

Temujin

Better known under the name Genghis Khan. We all know that he conquered most of Asia and came to Europe. He used his troops very effectively with a exceptional strategy and tactics. The aspect of Temujin’s life that inspired me was the very early part. During his childhood he was ejected by his tribe and had to survive on his own. He had this enormously strong will and survived and kept his family alive. He had then to go through horrible suffering and torture before he came to power. This showed me that sometimes you have to go through difficult times until you become successful. This is sometimes hard to endure, but I takes the will power of a true leader to go through with it. And in the end, he conquered the world…

Hannibal

Hannibal became famous equally for his will power. But it wasn’t his will to survive who impressed me. He analyzed a political situation very correctly, that the war with Rome will be inevitable and he chose a very daring course. He was the one to move first and was convinced on his course through the alps. It must have take a lot of conviction to drive his army through the mountains and never second guessing whether this is the right course of action. And once he was in Italy he showed his truly brilliant mind by always using the situations to his advantage. If he came to a battle field, he always took what was given him and made the most out of it.

I will add other leaders from time to time, but these three have to be sufficient for now.

Besides that I got hit by a reading frenzy… Doing a lot of reading again… lots of fun…

That’s everything
Cheers
Stefan

Learn some creative dissing

2008-02-09T23:00:00.001+01:00

I wanna have some of 'em...

2008-02-09T22:01:00.001+01:00

hahahahah, no further comment

2008-02-09T21:53:00.001+01:00

Are Americans Really That Stupid? - video powered by Metacafe

Color me badd - The earth, the sun, the rain

2008-02-07T08:04:00.001+01:00

For it may be the spell...

2008-02-06T22:16:00.000+01:00

Apparently, lots of my friends have temporarily or for a longer time lost their reason. It is kind of appalling how many of my friends have fallen in love these last months. I tried to warn them about the spell and told them about how crazy they are and all and they actually tried to convince me that I’m wrong…

First of all, I believe I sound like an angry old bachelor when I talk about the spell of love. Well, I am not proud of that, but in some sense I am. My personal experiences in that area are, using an euphemism, not that good. I was being silly one time in my life, and to be honest, it was once too many. Being in love means in the end being silly at times, being lost at other but in the essence not yourself. I most certainly learned my lesson and am grateful for that aspect of my silliness…

Having a relationship means having to respect someone other’s way of life and their views. It means taking care of someone else, being there in case of problems. Yes, even having the obligation to be there. It cuts into your time and freedom. It limits you in too many ways to list them here. So in the end, I hope you’ll agree that I am not at all just an angry bachelor, but a smart guy. I value my personal freedom and independence very highly, so a relationship is out of question. I don’t want to fall under the spell any time soon again.

Now, so much for myself… For all of you who recently have fallen in love out there. What you experience is fake. First of all, your own sense of measurement is getting out of hand because of what you feel, which makes you do things that you would never do if you were reasonable. And second of all, this feeling will not even last. Soon you’ll find out that your perception of the environment has been altered by your feelings and that, once the feelings dry out, your surroundings are much less pleasant than what you thought. Then you will have to content yourself with what you have in order to be happy.

Now, I have all the due respect for those, who agree to these terms and go for it. In fact I wish you all the luck. But got those who still believe that the true love exists, ye be warned. I have told you the tale now. If you play the game with the wrong incentives and get crushed, never forget that you have been warned…

Cheers
Stefan

If the Giants can do it...

2008-02-05T20:35:00.000+01:00

Well, I hope for you that you saw the latest edition of the greatest show on earth, Super Bowl XLII. The setting was perfect for an epic battle. On one side there were the Patriots, an offense that scored a new record 586 points, with a QB putting up new records in TD passes and a receiver in TD catches while going for the perfect season after having already won 18 consecutive games. On the other hand there were the giants, who were not at all that good. They were in fact not really excelling on anything but the defensive line which was the best in the league. But they went into the game really confident against these perfect in all aspects Patriots… and they won. It was an exciting game and the last two minutes we were really all standing because it took us out of our seats what we saw. The forth quarter scoring drive of the Giants was amazing… with one of the greatest plays I have seen so far…

Well, I took some learning out of that… No matter how hard it is to overcome the challenges that are set up for all of us, if you work hard enough for your dreams, you will achieve them. The Giants were basically showing us the American dream. If you work hard enough, you’ll make it. I took that to my life too… My favourite saying is now: If the Giants could do it, I can do it as well…

Well, to be honest, my short term goals do not include winning a Super Bowl, but lots of other things, lots of things where I am in a difficult situation and I was on the brink of saying: Well, maybe it is just not my time yet… but it is… I will get that stuff done and stop lingering around… I will make all of my short term goals be little Super Bowls and I’ll do them the Giant way…

The King!!!

2007-12-20T12:52:00.000+01:00

In a successful attempt to not fall asleep while waiting for the next class, I listened to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech that he held in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on the 28^th August 1963. To be honest, I was moved. I listened to it mainly for its rhetoric value at first… but then it got me thinking… again.

If you followed this blog for some time now, you have probably read that I adopted a more idealistic point of view on the world. I talked about how we can reasonably have a positive impact on the world around us. I have talked about being pragmatic, but at the same time having an idealistic stance. I have talked about having an efficient impact, by not wasting energy on lost causes.
This is all pretty good. It is definitely helpful to approach idealism like that. But it is by far not enough.
I realized that after having listened to Mr. Kings speech. It is not enough to not be realistic and pragmatic. It is not enough to stick to what is possible. It is not enough to talk about how the world can be better and then settle for buying T-Shirts that are not produced by children.
One man can change the world. One man can have an impact that makes the world more like the world we want to live in. Mr. King has taught me that more than any other person. This is in fact the difference between good and great.
I have been good so far. I have always known what is going wrong in the world. I had many discussions on what goes wrong. I was open to opinions of others on what goes wrong and included their view in my image of the world as far as it made sense. I was concerned by the problems of the world.
But I did not do anything with that knowledge. I was content to raise awareness and teach people around me. When I did not convince someone, I was satisfied by saying that this was another environment and that I, coming from the university, could not understand that environment (for example when I was working on the farm). The word that is missing here, as you might have guessed already, is the word action. Knowing what goes wrong, I never made the step towards how to change it. Because it is a difficult step. A step that only great people made, a step that great people made against all odds, against difficulties, against people opposing them. And that’s why they are different from the good people, that’s why they are great.

The question that looms in my head ever since I heard the speech: What do I stand for? This question bothers me, because I have no answer. I have not made a stance for an issue, I have not had an impact just yet. But I will not rest until I have found what I can put into action, what I can do as agent of positive change. The opportunities will come. The moment where I will have to decide to go from good to great will come. The moment where I will put some action to my knowledge will come. And I am looking forward to this happening.

So far so good, but what about you? What do you stand for?

Cheers
Stefan

Introducing the book (repost)

2007-12-18T21:48:00.001+01:00

actually, somehow that looks strikingly similar to what I have seen sometimes... ;-)

The road to success

2007-12-17T22:07:00.001+01:00

True Colors - Phil Collins

2007-12-17T20:28:00.001+01:00

I actually like this version a bit better than the original by Cindy Lauper... but the song is wonderful in both versions... (and the gazillion remakes...)

Blessid Union Of Souls - I believe

2007-12-17T20:01:00.001+01:00

wow... another beautiful song found on my harddisk...

The craziest play in Football history

2007-12-17T12:11:00.001+01:00

Well, if you like football, you gonna love this play... even if you love the sport for the precision, it's just another proof for the fact that if you do not give up, you can change the game in the very last second...

Never, never, never, never, never give up!!!

Happiness

2007-12-03T16:32:00.000+01:00

Hello friends...

Last week I was in Bern at the train station waiting for a friend of mine and I did what I always do: I observe people. And then one thing struck me: It is extraordinary how few people walk through their lives with a smile on their faces. About 90 % of the people passing by had a sad look on their faces. This motivated me to write the following post:

I mentioned the theory of happiness already in the Good Blogger, Bad Blogger post. So this is just an addition and a clarification to it:
It is basically just one statement:

You can be happy whenever you choose to be. The only person that interferes with you being happy is yourself, i.e. when you choose not to be. The circumstances have no influence on how happy you feel. The decisive point is how you treat these circumstances. Why is that so?

1. This sounds lame, but everything has its good and bad sides. Nothing in this world is only good or only bad. The effects of every event or action can be seen from at least two sides. If you ever encounter something that is uniquely good, then you just did not search hard enough to find the other side and vice versa. Now if you face life with this type of thougth and stay in a positive thought, you will never stop until you found the good in what is happening around you.
2. I for my part was very afraid of failure before. Then I realized that my most wonderful thoughts I have had when I lived through difficult times. I wondered why that might be. And it was pretty obvious that if we fail on something or something bad happens to us, we have to go back and rethink ourselves. We have to redefine ourselves, search for a new identity because we don’t want to identify ourselves with this loss or the failure. That’s why we get to know us better in difficult times and that’s when we learn most. Now this is a wonderful thing. And that’s why I know now that happiness is choice.
3. The third thing is that we have always to believe that the positive thing will happen save that we have conclusive evidence that the bad thing will happen. I mean why would we want to waste our energy thinking that something bad happens? If we constantly think about the bad things, we will eventually act towards it. So we bring it in existence, which we clearly don’t want… If we do it with the positive, then it has the same effect. Now this does not mean that we have to walk blindly into the future. If there is conclusive evidence, we have to act against the bad, but as long as there is no evidence, we should not invest our energy in something that we don’t want to happen.

This is the complete theory of happiness. I live up to it... but again for me it is easy right now as there are only good things happening. I pray that you will have the same luck at some point in your life.

Cheers
Stefan

What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

2007-11-28T12:34:00.001+01:00

Well, it just matched...

Oh what a wonderful world

2007-11-28T12:29:00.000+01:00

Dear Bloggers

Even though I actually really don’t have the time, I really wanted to share this with all of you:

My life is really, really beautiful.

About one week ago I was doing self-reflection and I came to exactly this conclusion. To some extent I was surprised, because not everything in my life is going perfect. The list of things that make my life less than perfect is long: I don’t have enough time to sleep, I am behind with my studies, there are relationship issues and so on…

But I realized that a life does not need to be perfect in order to be beautiful.

I thought about the things that I have. And those are the ones that make my life extraordinarily beautiful. I mean, I am 22 years old. I am still in my studies. I have not contributed that much yet to the world’s wellbeing. And still life has gifted me with so much. I met some very amazing people. I had wonderful discussions with them. I realized how I can have an impact on the people around me. And those people actually give me feedback that this impact is good. I dreamed always of being on the big politics scene to have an influence… but I learned that just making your neighbour smile is already a huge impact that I can have. I met people from so many nationalities these last two weeks. I went to an AIESEC conference in Fiesch where people from at least 30 nationalities participated. We exchanged viewpoints, we discussed politics, we partied together… it was wonderful to see the understanding that we created. We had fun together, we learned together… It was amazing to see so many different people to rally behind the same values and goals. Then I came back to Geneva and had just enough time to prepare my next conference, which took place in Athens. And there the same love was spread. There we were even more different nationalities. More diverse. But as soon as I arrived there, I knew that we would be friends. It was wonderful to discuss with people from very different places who do exactly the same thing in AIESEC as I did… to exchange viewpoints. To be accepted by so many different people. To gain friends who are spread all over the world. It was an amazing experience. We shared the same passion, the same understanding, the same trust towards each other…

Between these conferences I was in Bern eating traditional Swiss dinner at a table with people from at least 15 other nationalities.

I mean if you do Geneva – Fiesch – Geneva – Bern – Zürich – Athens – Zürich – Bern – Geneva in two weeks, and this at the age of 22, then your life must be simply amazing.

And now I had talks with people that I hoped to still have, but actually I had resigned that they ever will happen. And now they did. And I am very greatful for them.

I want to thank all the people who participated with me in these amazing last two weeks and I feel honoured to have met you all. For all the discussions we had… You make my life as beautiful as it is…

Love you all
Stefan

Roxette - Listen to your heart

2007-11-07T15:27:00.001+01:00

Last but not least, the third and last song I'll put on the blog for today... This is my motto... NOW...