2016 - time for another move

I don't know why, but i suddenly feel like blogging. Blogs. In 2016, in the era of facebook, twitter, instagram etc, with news feeds, limited characters, pics with short captions, do people still blog? Especially a blog with zero pictures? How does one express themselves without that in the moment smart jibe or selfie to go along?

Old fashion me, i honestly do not appreciate the new social media. Yet i can understand why it is so popular. 5 years since i even log on to blog a new post. 5 years, its like an eternity in the internet world. Yet i enjoy a moment like now, when I have some time alone to myself. To collect my thoughts, to pen it down in words. It just feels... almost therapeutic.

In the 5 years, much has changed of course. I re-read all my posts. I too have changed. Which makes me a little sad to be honest. I hardly have any personality and beliefs left in me anymore. Yet that had somehow finally allowed me to 'fit in', be part of the clique, to finally be successful in a corporate sense of things.

 I tendered my resignation officially again today. Looking at when I started the blog in 2009, I just left my first job. That seems like a lifetime ago. In exactly one month's time, I will be starting training in my new job, an old firm that I had regrets leaving, and hopefully, this is finally the chance to make things right. I look back at how my career has gone. 10 years in the industry this year. From a person that knows nothing about finance, to leading a team of seasoned priority bankers in one of the most prestigious bank/brand, I think it is ok for me to feel a little bit of pride today. From one of my first post looking back at my starting basic salary of $2300 in 2009 to a comfortable $9000 today, it's a rough 39% increment yearly. While it may not be the most impressive jump among my peers given the low base i started out with, I do believe I'm finally on track and a new phase is just beginning for me.

 My life has changed drastically. Married now. Can't believe it would happen 10 years back but it really did. I've done many things that I had dreamed of especially in terms of satisfying my wanderlust.

Nothing quite satisfied me like the sight of an aurora on snowy mountain top, sailing through the majestic fjords dreaming of being a viking, enduring the blistering Italian summer imagining a gladiator life in the colosseum and finally Saint Basil and the red square in the horizon. I truly felt like I've finally lived.

My wife asked me lately out of the blue.

"Are you happy?" she said

A simple line, a simple question.

Yet I honestly couldn't give her an answer.

 Life for me, for so long, except when I'm traveling, been nothing but mundane.

I do things not because I like it, but because I have to, because its a means to an end.
I love my wife. She makes me laugh all the time. But does laughter equate to happiness?

 Do I enjoy my job? Do I like banking? I honestly do not think so. I derive no pleasure from it. But its something I get paid to do, and I somehow do it pretty good and people start paying me more to continue doing it and the cycle simply goes on.

People always say find something you love and you never had to work, but I don't really have a passion other than traveling, and without the money, I can't go anywhere anyway so I just continue to work for 11 months and hope to enjoy 2 weeks every year. That's it. Happy? Not exactly. But at least I have that 2 weeks a year so its better than 0. :)

I think a dream job if I ever can choose one, would be a travel writer. But to be honest its still a bit of a dread and I think I would probably suck at it because I don't like touristy stuff, I hate taking photos, and I'm really bad at giving directions or making what seems interesting to me palatable to the general public.

I just want to be alone in a foreign land, get lost and yet be enthralled and amazed by every single thing I see.

How the color of the brick in Florence can look so different from the one in Rome.
How there is a sudden piece of ruin in the middle of the street pavement in Istanbul.
How there is a castle ruin hidden in a park behind my B&B in Ephesus.

I just want to be continually amazed.

 I just realised that all I want, is to be a kid once again.

 Oh cruel cruel life.......

Damn you for letting me wish an impossible dream...