Outlandish

As mentioned in the previous post I am not happy with the new job and thus the life I've lead since the beginning of 2018. This unhappiness and how stress has literally occupied every corner of my mind can be seen also as the loss of all creativity in me, thus the blog has been silent for months. But now, with a new set of goals and a new determination born from the ultimate disappointment that this new job has been, I decided to challenge myself: I found a list of 10 questions worth asking myself. Whether as an employee, a manager or just an individual these 10 questions seemed like interesting points to ponder on so from now on I will ask myself one question each week and see what thoughts come forth. First of all this is a good idea for me because I love writing and I've missed it. But also I hope I will come up with new ideas and perhaps some new realizations about myself and my life that I maybe wasn't aware of before. So, challenge accepted

Overall I have been quite good at cherishing the moment. It has a lot to do with the ability to appreciate the little things in life; whether it is a sunny day (rarety in Estonia!), a great meal or a cuddle from someone special. But recently I have found myself struggling to cherish any moment. There simply hasn't been any moments worth cherishing. Except the moment when I bury myself in bed and slip away from this world for 10ish hours. I got myself a new job at the beginning of the year and despite it being a large step-down from a Project Manager position I felt hopeful because it was a big company with surely many opportunities to grow professionally and move forwards in my career. How wrong I was... The company culture is everything BUT forward-looking and open. The company, it's values and it's way of operating is a complete opposite of me as a person and as an employee. This together with the fact that it has been one of the most stressful winte

”You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King I’m not a big consumer of inspirational quotes. I find life itself so inspiring that I don’t need quotes to spew evident facts about life to me. But sometimes even I come across quotes by influential people that hit a spot in my mind. Usually those quotes have a point that might not open up unless you’ve seen more of life than just the never-changing streets and people of your home town. One such quote was the above example from a legend that is the one and only Martin Luther King. In his life he cultivated multiple spot-on and brilliant sentences but this struck a cord with me especially. Why particularly? Because I know exactly (both figuratively and literally) what it feels like standing at a foot of a staircase looking up and not seeing where it ends... If it ever ends.  One such staircase I met in Paris when we started climbing up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and anot

Listing your highlights from the past year is a common practice for social media users around the globe when the year is nearing its end. I encountered this question as early this year as October and it got me thinking... The years when I have actually achieved a lot (moving abroad; getting a job in a huge, international company; achieving a long-time dream, etc.) I never acknowledged those achievements much. Personally, of course, I was aware of what had happened and been done but I didn’t shout about it publicly. On the other hand, the few years that have truly been the most trying in my life so far I have mentioned. Usually in a form of a prayer or a heart-felt wish that the next year would please be better. So far I have gotten that wish... Most of the time. But honestly, how your next year turns out to be depends a lot on how you embark on it; do you start the year with the Finnish mentality ”it’s gonna be just as shit as the last one, nothing ever changes” or do

As a blogger it is vital to keep the posts coming regularly; the more often the better. Search engines and their algorithms raise active blogs in search results higher than those that are rarely updated. But the fact is that nobody can be creative 24/7. Creativeness has a nasty habit of appearing all of a sudden and then you are overwhelmed with ideas of what to write or say, what kind of photographs you should take for each blog post, etc. And then, just as suddenly, follows the period of emptiness when you can’t think of anything to say, no matter how hard you try. Creative people have different ways of dealing with the sudden peaks and lows of creativity; some write notes and make schedules, others just get to work, open a document and start spewing words onto it, or grab their camera and run outside to look for scenes to capture. I find the latter practice to suit me better. When I get an idea I have to materialize it immediately, even if it’s just one sentence. I

When life kicks you in the stomach repeatedly for months on end it’s good to keep in mind the wise words of the great thinker, Taylor Swift: Shake it off! Different people have different ways of ”shaking off” all the shit that life has seen fit to pile on your shoulders and mine is spending time with friends. How fortunate then that one of my best friends arriving for a long weekend visit coincided with so far the worst week of this Autumn! I received a crushing ”Thank you but no thank you”-message from a job that I was sure was mine (yeah, no sign of Finnish humility here) on the same day that my friend cruised to Tallinn and thank goodness for that! I needed her cheering company more than ever. After a quick visit to my local supermarket we decided to make a little curve on our way to my place. The curve had a  conveniently  situated  sushi restaurant on it. There is nothing in life that sparkling wine, sushi and good company couldn’t fix! Even though I ha