When life makes up the balance sheet…
At the moment of writing, my son is about 140 days old today. Here I share a learning I want to document and will share with him once the time is right. If you are not my son — I hope this will add value to your life. If you feel like it, leave a comment and contribute to this lesson.
This turned out to be quite a tough story. It isn’t a practical guide, I’m sure I’ll post about that in the future. It’s a story about the three most difficult years in my life. Three years, which contained four life changing events and which grew my obsession of being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Before I turned 18 years old, I never really experienced discomfort. I had the occasional cardio beep test in High school [1] which I wasn’t really good in and obviously I had to cycle to school every day for 40 minutes for 5 years. But classifying that as discomfort, I don’t know... I’d probably make you do the same. (sorry, but not sorry)
After turning 18, I lived like a king for quite some time. I did what I pleased, whenever I pleased. I had a beautiful girlfriend. I worked in an area which was new at the time and nobody really understood the value and power of it. I was a pioneer in a world we called Web 2.0. I moved to Madrid. Did my studies in Uni and after graduating and opened up my first business.
Life was good.
I never had any real need of being resilient. I had my friends, sufficient amount of cash, my freedom and I went on holidays with friends. I was really comfortable with being comfortable. It just took some time before I had to deal with tough things in life..
But life made up the balance sheet…
It started in 2012 with your aunt. You probably know by now you’re number four in the family, not number three. There was a baby before your nephew Owen came around. The first of your generation was a girl called Juuls. The pregnancy went all fine, until a simple cystitis turned into a ripped appendix. I was at a concert when I got the call. And got someone to drive me to hospital as fast as he could. Invasive surgery followed immediately and your aunt barely survived. She was kept in a coma for two months.
Juuls was born but never grew older than 21 weeks of age.
Life stopped. No-one should ever have to bury his or her child. It was one of the most tragic moments in my life to date. I was lucky to have your mum around. She really helped me keeping me from depression and losing my mind. She managed to pick up the pieces of what was left of me, to keep my head high and to look at a brighter side of life. My sister still lived, and I should be thankful for that. I guess in these times anything we call ‘Fair’ or ‘Justice’ there doesn’t exist. It’s just life.
So, your aunt slowly recovered and life and opportunity found it’s way back into my brain. Only months later, I took a gamble. I always envisioned myself as being an entrepreneur, a starter and creator. Someone who creates business, stories or product from a blank piece of paper. So, together with uncle Thomas and our Finnish friend Vesa, I started a new business in an area I didn’t fully understand. I shared this crazy visionary idea of creating a way to share moving pictures. Just like the ones you’d come across in the stories of Harry Potter. I did a ton of research about creating apps for smartphones and had my contacts in the Dutch Start-up scene. It felt like 1+1=10. We had a dreamteam, a beautiful working product and some investment to get started. A dream come true!
Well, when you land in Schiphol in Amsterdam today, you don’t see a 30 story building with the name Framely on it. Sorry pal, that magical idea didn’t fly. In fact, it was the first time I had to make responsible decisions and bite a bullet. Face reality once again. My start-up failed. My responsibilities didn’t leave me though. Paying tax doing the admin. Paying rent and making sure I got a new gig.. But when you put in the time, the effort the sweat and the tears for so long, killing your darlings isn’t that easy… I was incredibly frustrated with myself, feeling useless and stupid.
While being in this state of sleepless nights and frustration — the most peculiar thing happened to your mum. I thought I had my share, but I was about to learn to true meaning of grit…
You see, you’re mum was studying in a private school which cost about €1.000.000 gazillion million a semester. So, although she was really doing her best on getting her grades, she was also working two jobs in two different restaurants. You could say she had some things on her mind. One night, I got a call from your grandpa. He told me she passed out during work and I had to come over. At the time we were living about 5 minutes from your grandparents, so I raced on my bike and as fast as I could. When I saw your mum she gave me the chills… She gave the impression she drank too much ‘fun stuff’ or as if she was drugged. She had a double tongue and couldn’t walk straight without any support. So after a quick call with the doctor. I drove her to the hospital to check things out. People thought she was drugged, so we weren’t a priority. I waited for 4 hours, it now was the middle of the night, and the doctor couldn’t give any answers. So she had to stay overnight. Just to be sure…
The next morning I took the earliest bus to the hospital. I was in for a nice surprise. When I saw your mum, she lost her complete ability of speech. She couldn’t utter a single word and had the energy to be awake for only 120 minutes at a time. In fact, her rhythm and vocabulary isn’t that much different of what you have at this point in time… She was in for a couple of months of testing. To find out if there was any brain damage. Why this happened in the first place! She had to learn to speak again, to regain her energy levels, to use her short term memory and to regain trust in her body.
It took her 6 months to revalidate, learn to speak again - al whilst resting between 12–18 hours a day.
Can you imagine how our apartment looked like? How I juggled taking care of her? To find new work? To make sure I didn’t mentally break and re-building a game plan? Perhaps, you can imagine it was a tough period. What the hell was I supposed to do? And why was life so unfair?
It was the beginning of the year 2014 and I was about to turn 25. I had to take action.
So I did. I was doing some networking, meet some new people which eventually helped me do some amazing work. But I told you there were four events in three years. And number four was about to come…
We had a dinner party, aunt Wietske came around for a gourmet. Your mum was recovering, she had some energy again and we had a bright look at the future. But I got news of the worst kind. An old colleague, which turned into one of my best friends, fell down a cliff in Tarragona in Spain and didn’t survive. His name was Maarten. This guy had it all! He was young, full of life, resourceful, careful and probably the smartest guy I knew. Wow, this guy had potential! He had a passion for hiking and wall climbing. On a simple hike on one day, something happened which made him fall about 30 meters down the cliff. They tried saving him, but he died within minutes..
The last time I saw him was on his quick visit back in Holland. He joined me for a whisky tasting I organised. That night, we went outside to smoke a cigar we both didn’t like, but we acted like we did (and didn’t tell each other we didn’t). While trying to be 50 years old, we looked out, gazed to the stars and philosophised about our futures. About life living in Spain, how life is a series of problems to solve. About how anything you do is a choice. And the art of making and keeping friendships. I remember us being thankful for the fact that the world was so small in this day and age. That we could book a ticket to Spain for less than €50,- and we could text one another as if he was standing next to me.
Just a few days after the word got out, he returned to the Netherlands in a coffin. I still couldn’t believe the whole situation. In that week I think I visited his body three times. While writing this, I still get emotional and tears start ti fill my eyes. When you sit next to your pal, who doesn’t blink, talk or respond. Your mind does crazy things to you. The only thing you hope is that this all has been a sick joke. But obviously, this was life.
The moment you carry the coffin of a friend. The moment you let it sink into the ground and reminiscence with his other friends is a moment which will stick with me forever. No words can describe the loss of such a beautiful mind, a positive individual and a good friend.
I never meant to make this post super emotional. Or too only share sorrow in my life. These four events made a huge impact on my life. And made a big change into how I see the world and being thankful for every minute.
Before that, I never really had to worry about anything. I didn’t have a real purpose. I didn’t make most out of my life. I spend countless hours playing videogames. I wasted hours in bed with a hangover. I didn’t challenge myself every day to push myself. I didn’t have any resilience. I wasn’t prepared for the thing called reality…
All these events had heavy impact. I had very little control over these situations (or I can still look in the mirror and say I did my very best to make things work.. )
After this, I let a lot of clichés enter in my core philosophy. To be thankful for life. To not take anything for granted. To find purpose. To not keep punishing yourself with depression if you’ve giving your best. To say to your friends that you love them — as much as possible.
I guess in the end. Life is just a series of choices and a string of events. You and I have been privileged to grow up in a country which allows you to do whatever you damn well please. I think we should be inspired, make decisions, fail, be okay with that, win and be thankful for every day we’re on this planet. There are things we can’t control and with which we have to deal with. That’s were humbleness and gratitude play it’s part. And there are things we can control. That’s when we should be visionaries and focused on making a difference.
Life starts with yourself, your friends & family, your community, your city, country and ends up in this world (in 2018).
But always remember, it starts with you.
Love,
Dad.
