My time in Shanghai is over now. The time here felt short and yet at the same time really long as I have experienced many good and some bad things during my stay.
It is a mixed feeling to have left.
On one hand I am really glad to have stopped working. After a while, work just became a real pain in the ass, because we stayed in the office until very late.
– I realized that I did not get a real chance to actually live and experience Shanghai. If someone had come to visit me, I would have still needed to consult my good friend Google for good restaurants, clubs and cafés. I would have not been able to show around my favorite spots due to the lack of time to go out and find out cool places and eventually be able to call them my „favorites“.
The second thing I realized is that to me working in a start-up company is almost the same as working for a big company. I came to Shanghai with the expectation that after having worked for so many big companies, working in a start-up company would give me a more pleasing ambiance, more freedom and more responsibility.
In a certain way these points were given but nevertheless I have to admit that I just dislike to work for other people. Money is no real incentive for me to work either. Only if the work is a challenge, only if I can learn something for myself, improve myself in a way, I can align my inner motivation to the work.
In the end, I conclude that only starting an own company makes sense to me, as it is clear that only when you start your own thing, your heart and passion will be truly attached to it.
Besides this, Shanghai was really awesome and I am sad that I had to leave behind my family and friends.
Being in Asia is like being in a totally different world.
It is hard to imagine that a completely different life existed before my stay in Asia and will continue when I return.
I cannot express how influential it was to have met all these people during my stay.
To listen to their life stories, to share thoughts and perceptions. To see how they live, to hear what they want to do in the future, to understand their worries and to appreciate their dreams.
- It makes you reflect over your own life and rethink certain aspects of it.
During my time in Asia, I also visited old friends and I discovered something very important:
It is nice to discover that after all the time of not seeing each other, after all the experiences made, which shaped our lives in different ways, the old relationships have not changed at all.
This proves that my theory of getting to know the inner core is right (@t ):
If you succeed to penetrate to the inner core of a person, while getting to know him and appreciate what you see, if the other person succeeds in doing so as well, then you will always be able to establish the same good relationship.
The inner core of a person is one's basic character, meaning the way you are, when you were a kid, - the phase of life where you are not consciously able to disguise yourself, which as a adult, we master skillfully for reasons which only adults have, like protecting or shielding ourselves from bad things, fitting into social groups or attaining a certain goal.
The basic set of characeristics of a person never changes, - as you cannot change your genes, or the background you come from. So if you manage to establish a relationship upon this with someone, you will always get along with this person no matter what you both experience in life or kind of lifestyle you adapt over time.
In the end you will always find yourselves again - since the underlying fundament will not have changed.
People sometimes call this „soul mates“, I call them real friends.
– friends, that no matter how far you are apart from them, they will still know you and appreciate the way you are. Friends, you can always count on, friends who always see you, and only you, not a fascade, you established for the general public.
Discovering that nothing has changed, while everyhing has changed at the same time, gives me a feeling of freedom and joy. (@jsr: ;-) )
It is nice to see that meeting my old friends back in Asia after such a long time felt like as if we were apart for only a day or two.
Although contacts are not always maintained, although we live in different societies and although live goes on, I know that after only a short time it will be possible to recognize these friends again and to get along with them the same way like before...
and this discovery is very precious to me as it makes me understand that wherever those persons are, - who know me so well and who I know so well-, in whichever city or country they live...
...when I travel and visit them, I will always be home in the world.
