In the two and a bit years since I last posted(2015-2018) much has happened. I’ve been in and out of two different jobs. Bought my own apartment in Dublin. Gotten a new girlfriend and moved in with her into a rental apartment in cork. Started RowingAdverts.co.uk a buy and sell noticeboard site for the rowing market in the U.K. and Ireland and grew it to be the largest rowing buy and sell site in Europe. Received investment for a 50% stake in rowing adverts. Quit my permanent job of a year and a half to start my own business with Jonny and 2 English business partners. Watched it all go down the pan over the course of 4 months. Moved back home with my parents for 3 months. I took exams to become a qualified financial advisor and passed them all. Averaging 67%. Returned to rowing for a year and lost 12kg while I was at it.
It all looks a bit mad. But I’d much rather all that madness, failure and learning than a nice steady job like some people I know have. Not saying that what I’m looking for (or doing) is any better. I just think it’s a case of different strokes for different folks.
People often say that it’s stupid to tell people to follow their dreams and that they have no idea what their on about and will likely regret undergoing a major change in favor of stability and gentle growth. In one why I can see why they say that, however, pain and failure are not the end of the world. If people never get to chase their dreams then they’ll never know if what they wanted would really have made them happy or not. I for one am delighted I went off and did whatever took my fancy; living in and traveling to multiple countries, ad hoc contract work, starting my own companies, spending a stupid amount of money on things like learning to skydive, scuba dive, etc. Each one of those things has introduced me to new people, new ways of doing things and how amazing life can be. However they also thought me about loneliness, the importance of family and friends, that constant travel is like chocolate cake(you can have too much of it). I now know that I don’t want to be a nomadic worker spending a month in each country while working on my laptop. I did it, and while there were pros to this there were also many cons. But I would always have glamorized this lifestyle if I didn’t try it out for my self.
I think that’s my point in all this. Sometimes I worry that I didn’t spend my 20ies doing the right thing. But then I look back, take stock and evaluate and realize that the 4 years since I left university have been much more rewarding and challenging than the 4 years I spent in college. I feel like I have a much better idea of what I want out of life, of what makes me feel alive, what I count as important, my opinions and ideas on certain things have solidified with more life experience under my belt and I certainly feel a little wiser and happy in my self than I did 4 or 9 years ago(before starting college).
To summarise, I’m glad I did what I did with my life so far. It’s impossible to do everything there is to do and each choice I’ve made has come at a cost, but it has also made me who I am. Now I look forward to the next chapter of my life where I hope to double down on my strengths and learnings over the last few years.
After all, all we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and make the most of each day as we pass through it.