What do you want to learn in life?

“some time” doesn’t exist — if you want to learn or do something, you need to plan for it now.

(almost) accurate depiction of a typical Saturday. Photo by Jonas Allert on Unsplash

“What do you want to learn in life?”

Enjoying the buzz from the second bottle of Rosé on a grey Saturday afternoon in Berlin, the question found me rather unprepared.

“That’s a good fucking question.”

Sitting at our kitchen table, a few friends and I started discussing all the things that we still wanted to pick up. And came to the conclusion that if we really want to learn these things, we better get started now.

“Let’s write this out. What do we want to learn before we die?”

What a refreshing exercise after living “on repeat” for weeks with no end in sight (at least in Germany).

This is what I came up with:

This is a first rough draft, but one thing became crystal clear instantly: when am I going to do this, if not now?

This could be us, still not having learned how to surf. Photo by Vlad Sargu on Unsplash

Look. Unless something extraordinary happens, we’ll be working full-time on something for the foreseeable future. And eventually, kids will became part of the everyday life, our parents aren’t getting any younger, and the responsibilities will increase with every year.

At the same time, learning a language or doing an EMT training isn’t something that you can do over a one-week vacation. It’s a continuous process.

We live our lives thinking “I’ll do this some time”. The truth is, we won’t — unless we actively plan for it. “Some time” doesn’t exist, it’s merely a construct in our heads.

At age 18, it was “after I finish university”. After university, it was “after I’ve worked for a couple years”. Now, I’m at the point on which I’ve worked a couple years. And I’m thinking “when I’ve fulfilled my duty at my current job” that I just took up. Yet, once that comes around, there is a…