Taking one eye off the horizon: How I am learning to focus less on the “when”

I’m a restless soul. Not in a romantic, vagabondish way or in a hip digital nomad kind of way. More in a slightly problematic kind of way.

How problematic? Well, I love the town where I currently live and I genuinely enjoy my job — but if somebody told me today that I would live here and work in the same place for the rest of my life, that would be one of my worst nightmares. And that seems a little fucked up, even to me.

Because I’d probably live really happily ever after if things stayed the way they are right now. It’s just the “that’s it”-idea of settling, the thought that all my day dreams will forever remain just that, which brings panic to my eyes.

Just last week I was having a conversation about this sentiment with two friends. One of them contemplated how, even when you’re happy with your life 90% of the time, there will always be those 10% where you think about all the things that could be different — and how that can really get to you. My other friend, who is an absolute role model for living in the now, argued that our goal should be to turn the 90% into 100% and just be happy with what we have.

I objected. For me, personally, it’s those 10% that make life exciting, that make me get up in the morning. I always need to have something on the horizon, dreams that I can chase. Some of these dreams change weekly, others I happily carry around for years, and a few I have actually made happen.

However, they all have something in common. Something that I’ve tripped over countless times: In my mind, I will be a different, better, happier me once I get there, once I’ve chased down that dream. It’s a thought I can’t seem to shake, even after having lived in eight cities in five different countries — carrying a mountain of unrealistic expectations, hopes and dreams from one place to the next.

At 16, I boarded a plane to the USA, exhilarated to be turning my boring German small town life into a High School movie. In reality, I traded one small town for another, I still had homework to do and teenage drama is the same any place in the world.

When I signed up for an Erasmus semester in Finland, I thought I’d finally have the wild, carefree university experience that everyone around me seemed to be having. And yes, there were wild parties. However, I’m an introvert and avid overthinker of all the things, so “carefree” was a state I only reached for a blissful 10 minutes per night out.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret moving places so much. Every new home taught me valuable lessons, forced me out of my comfort zone and made me grow. They set me up with a global network of wonderful friends and made me the person I am today. However, this person is still a slightly more mature (and I like to think improved) version of that 16-year-old on the plane to Iowa. As Confucius could have told me back then:

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Or, as Emma Gannon pointed out so strikingly in one of her Sunday Times columns:

“There is no miraculous transition or stepping stone to a different you. So it’s more beneficial in the long run to stop strategically planning the “when” moments and live for the now.”

So while I don’t regret giving in to my restlessness, I wish I would have been more aware of the pitfalls of the “when” mindset. Of the frustration and disappointment it can cause, how it can make your heart heavy when it should simply be happily curious about discovering a new corner of the world. It would have allowed me to experience all these fantastic places for what they were and not as magical portals to a new me — which I was failing to unlock.

I am getting better at thoroughly enjoying the “now” and am less focussed on the “when”; I’m soothing my restlessness with frequent travels and I have created a home that I love. I even bought furniture and house plants to help me stay put.

But I’ll always have half an eye on the horizon. Because wondering what else is out there and not knowing where I will be in five years time — geographically, physically, mentally — is the beauty of life as I know it.

And who knows, maybe I will chase down that dream of a seaside cottage one day. But if I do, it’ll be for the right reasons and with an open mind.