It was a sunny, but chilly day which was nonetheless appropriate for this time of the year. End of February – the end of winter.
My best friend and I sat in a lovely and cozy café. It was afternoon and he had come by after school. We were talking about his upcoming birthday and as usual with every new year in sight we habitually talked about the past and the things we had experienced and achieved so far.
We remarked that we had already known each other for 12 (!) years and that we had been friends ever since, although both of us had been really busy, hardly seeing each other. – wow what a lifelong friendship!, we thought.
As the pleasurable afternoon went on, we agreed to a pact: in 10 years –no matter where we both ended up – we would come back right to this specific café (given that the café would not have been closed down by then ;-) ), getting a nice cappuchino and chatting about our wonderful lives, we would have established by then. How we would currently live somewhere in South of France or Italy, happy, relaxed and seeing our dreams fulfilled.
This was five years ago.
He was about to celebrate his 18th birthday and we were both studying for the A-Level at that time.
Surprising, how fast time passes by, right?
According to our pact we have to come back to this café, back to our home town in only another five years. 10 years sounded sooooo long and now it is only in a wink of an eye that we will come back to this place again.
– Will we have already accomplished our dreams and wishes, we have once craved for in a small café in a little town somewhere in Germany?
Life is very fast-pacing.
A lot of things have changed since this encounter, we have commenced college life, we have spent time in Paris, Shanghai and Chile, we have met new interesting people and we have found new places we call our home now, - yet nothing has really changed.
We are still the same persons with the same dreams – some already fulfilled, some still for us to grasp for. Our reunion seemed like yesterday...
It is surprising how we do not perceive how fast time moves forward and before we realize this, time has already passed by...
The other day I had the shocking epiphany that my university time is soon coming to an end as well. A whole chapter of my life is ending..., I thought alarmingly.
To prevent this from happening too early, I decided to extend my studies another semester, as I really began to comprehend that I would never have this precious time as a student again.
One has to profit from the moment.
This year has been one of the most fast-pacing years in my life. I spent more time abroad than in Germany.
At the beginning of 2010 I completed the first half of my course "Design Thinking" at the Hasso-Plattner Institute near Berlin while commuting to Munich once a while. From March until Mai 2010 I was in Shanghai to work for a small start-up company. Now from June until July I will finish the second half of the "Design Thinking" course, only to find myself in Geneva from July until October 2010.
And from November 2010 onwards, I will be in New York...
Everything just goes by so fast!
I enjoy every moment I have, for I have realized that due to my very short stays at these various locations, I can only really profit from the stays if I fully plunge into my environment.
We need to live in the present from time to time, neither in the future by planning what we will do later, nor in the past by reminiscing over things we cannot change anymore.
Sometimes we need to forget what has happened and also what is waiting for us.
Sometimes we need to capture the time of the moment and consciously appreciate what we do in that very instance.
One has to profit from every moment.
