The Decision

It has been many months since my last confession and I am sorry for that. ;) I put off writing about my Asia experiences because I was worried that reflecting on another time would take away from the experiences I am having now in Australia. I wanted to write when I got back to Germany so that I could relive the experiences I had while I was traveling, when those thoughts may be needed. The fact is it will probably be put off like so much in life and maybe I would never get around to it, if I wait any longer. Once I get back, work will start and then I will find reason after reason to be distracted and perhaps with time, no longer remember all that I had been through these past few months. This is a time where I have the rare opportunity to pursue new ambitions and take the time to do thing like write again. It is also 4 am and I can’t sleep, and cant really think of anything else to do with this time.

As you can see above I have decided to return to Germany. In fact this has been something that has occupied my mind these past few months and is perhaps the reason I have had difficulty in taking my free time to consider much else. I have been debating whether or not to return to my job as a bike tour guide in Berlin. This trip was in some way made to find an answer to the question of my return. My boss and friend Wolf, in all his patience, needed an answer eventually and set a deadline for this month so that he could prepare for the season ahead and fill any vacancies. After repeatedly requesting a little bit more time to think about it, I realized that the decision would not get any easier and made my decision just two weeks ago. I love my job and my reasons for leaving or staying are too complex to dissect in their entirety, but still it would be nice to get some of my thoughts down on paper.

Some of the reasons for choosing to return to Berlin are purely rational reasons like job security and a relatively stable income in a time of financial crisis. But to purely make a decision on hard cold rationality would be the disregard of my heart, soul and, whimsical way of life. Life is about more than what is rational and right. Once we shut off what we truly want in sacrifice for what we think is logically right, we lose part of ourselves. I also had to appeal to my emotions and in the process reflected upon why I found this job in the first place. Too many people I know went for office jobs after college because they thought it was the right thing to do. Many of those people forgot their passions and their calling, because the promotions and the raises distract(ed) them. They fall into a life style and they are always working towards a nicer house, a nicer car, and nicer schools for their children. Nothing is good enough. They get caught up in a life style that perpetuates those distractions and at some point they arrive at a midlife crisis where they slow down and realize what they’ve missed out on. Life is short. We live only once. I did not want to be filled with that regret.

After college I decided to take a year off and to do something fun that I could never do again. Once you are on a career path it is hard to break free. First you have a job and before you know it a family and responsibilities. I had a rare opportunity in life. I had no romantic relationship, my family had no one place they were located, I had two very generous parents who allowed me lodging in their spare Berlin apartment while I found work and income, and most importantly I had youth, health, and the absence of dependents on my side. When you are young, healthy and alone you can live however necessity demands eg. If I needed to live off of pasta and water I could. After moving to Berlin, I allowed myself to be pressured into a translation job, translating help documents and program tutorials from German to English for an IT company. I needed money and in retrospect understand how that terrible the need of a paycheck limits ones ability to pursue passion alone. Unfortunately we still need food on the table and a roof overhead and we are not always at luxury to be picky about work. This is where my life could have taken a very serious turn. I could have been content with food on the table and a roof over head, I could have justified my unhappiness with every promotion and every raise I got because the roof overhead and the food on the table got better and better, but before I knew it, I would be 50 and reflecting on my life with that disdain that I see in too many people. I remember distinctly one day looking up from my computer and seeing two kids riding around on bikes on the street below. I looked around the office at my sad reality. Those kids were so happy and so care-free and here I was suffering in a job I hated. I was not fulfilling my original goal of doing something fun and something I could never do again and this job in all its suffering would not lead me to any far sighted goal that one may be willing to make sacrifices for. It had nothing to do with my life and passions. I wanted to do something fun so I looked up an industry synonymous with fun: Tourism. The first website that came up was Fat Tire Bike Tours. I had done a bike tour once years before in Munich and loved it. I sent off my application immediately. A few weeks later I was offered a job as a tour guide. So here I am two years later. These past two years have been nothing short of magical. I love my job. I spend my days outside on a bike, teaching people about the history of a city I love, I make enough to survive comfortably as a bachelor, I start work at 10 and finish by 5, and I get 5 months off every year to travel or pursue new passions. Last year I took the time to travel a bit in the US and Canada and learn about new industries like the entertainment industry as an extra in movies and this year I spent traveling in Asia and experiencing the adventures I have been writing about in this blog. In short it is a dream come true. The reasons for leaving would not be dissatisfaction with the lifestyle this job affords. I know people that work in tourism their entire life and it is easy to understand why. After living such a free life, it is hard to return to the constrictions of the desk and the office. I wonder sometimes myself if I will ever be able to make that transition and I wonder if I even want to. Maybe that fear and that doubt are some of the more important reasons why I find it hard to leave this life behind just yet. Still though I felt anxiety at staying on the job.

The life of a tour guide can also be difficult. Although meeting wonderful new people every day has its advantages, it also has its drawbacks. In fact I think it is a lot like the movie ground hog day, what you have one day is taken away the next. You meet incredible individuals in tourism. The people you meet may even stay a few days but then they are off to their next adventures. I had the great fortune of meeting some of these people again on the road and it made me aware of how difficult it can be to lose friends and I miss the consistency that a normal life might afford.

It can also become mundane to say the same historical facts over and over again day after day. Sometimes I find myself fall into auto pilot because I have said the same exact thing over 100 times but the occasional novel questions people ask call me back to the moment and I am invited to reflect upon the city around me and appreciate its rich history. When people tell me their own life experiences, perhaps a story that happened to them when they crossed from West to East Berlin in the 1970’s my life is enriched and I feel like I become part of a secret world. It is those stories I live for. I also never lived in a city for more than 4 years at a time and this job has allowed me to get to know Berlin in a very intimate way but I am getting antsy to move on. I think it is the fear of laying down roots and getting too attached to the place. I am fairly certain that I will return to the United States for Graduate School next year and I don’t want to make the separation from Berlin any more difficult than it already is.

I think one of my greatest hesitations in returning to my job in Berlin again would be the wasted opportunity to live in a new country and experience a new job or a different lifestyle. I thought about that for a while but realized that my job in Berlin gave me the luxury to do just that without much compromise. I get 5 months in the year to go and do whatever it is I please. I am now living in Australia with the freedom to be here and work but it is a half-life. I can live only with the knowledge that I will have to leave again in April and that prevents me from attaching to my environment completely, but when it came down to that point I realized that my heart was set on returning to the US for grad school and whether here in Australia or back in Berlin that day of separation would come regardless. The separations in life are unavoidable but the limitations they pose are self-incurred and I have decided to change that.