Young professionals are the future. Or so we are desperate to believe. Struggling between dreams, desires, and the actual need to survive, generation Y has been in a confusing conversation with the world for a long time.

And here is why I believe we need to change the game.

“Fancy quotes about game-changing sound dull, and you are too smart for them”. — every reasonable person

For such a long time I have always believed that being smart is enough to find a job. Until you find the first job, and after a while, you start to wonder — what if I can achieve something better. And you can do that.

But whatever a young professional is thinking, it's probably wrong.

The paradoxical existential context into Demolition

Every day we wake up to the same rhythm of the day — coffee, breakfast, emails, tasks. Spotify makes the notion smoother, while we consume unnecessary small notes of our daily routine. We do all this to live. And it’s okay if you enjoy your work. But what if you don’t?

The scare of being young and to speak up

The context of being young, employed, and happy is overrated. I spent long nights on reddit, reading through different stories of young professionals, struggling to go through the day. They have it all — the education, the money, the job, yet they are unhappy. But is this a problem really?

Only recently did I noticed, that all those people had more in common with me, although we don't come from the same background, country, or even culture. Yet we all wanted to achieve something with our lives, we were motivated and exhausted of the potential, which was supposed to drive us further and higher.

What did go wrong?

We were all too confused to ask, all too afraid to speak our mind.

And you can guess that for your Boss it’s easier to sign a resignation than to actually spend time with you and talk about your problems. And this is not normal.

Although many of you may think that I should be aware, that the world does not go round around young professionals, or me, but life is happening now, exactly at the moment when you are reading this. And if you are not happy with what you do, then you should ask yourself why you do what you do.

I know it’s scary to write an email about your issues, but it’s much easier than being unhappy day by day.

Writing this email won't be a revelation, but it may help you to present yourself as the professional you truly are.

Be kind. Respectful. Honest. True to you.

To all the young professionals — you are the inspiration behind everything I do. You make the change in the world. You are the future.

Consumers are exposed to a big amount of information every day, but only a small percentage of it manages to create some form of communication. Imagine a shopping mom with a kid who wants to buy healthy cornflakes but doesn’t have enough time to read the fine print on the back of the package. Instead, she pulls out her phone and scans the QR code that answers all her questions — fast, easy and convenient.

Trends for 2020 and the small powerful QR code

QR codes are much more than just another marketing tool that is fashionable. This small square code lets you communicate with your customers at a level where you extend the onboarding process. It is the creation of a form of engagement between a given product or company with consumers that are at the heart of the 2020 trends. By using a QR code, you help your Brand by enabling your users to communicate directly with your product, without complications or unnecessary actions.

Mobile marketing for everyone with a QR code

Various studies show that consumers are getting their information online through their mobile devices for the products, which they buy. Customers not only want to make sure that they invest in the highest quality products, but they want to be able to communicate with the brands and businesses they buy from. When a young man buys a ready-made pie mixture, he does not always know exactly how to prepare the finished product. Many internet users are looking for videos online to learn how to cook, so using a QR code with video how to prepare the pie accurately, this man can quickly and easily see exactly what is required for a recipe without worries about having read the description correctly.

How to create successful QR code marketing

The QR-Code Generator is the easiest tool to turn an otherwise black and white square into a branded element with CTA and a variety of different designs to complement your product layout. The platform also offers the most detailed features to track ROI in each campaign, so you never lose focus where your money goes.

The connection between a product and a customer has never been so short. Using a QR code, you won’t have to wait for your customers to rewrite a long URL from the package to receive a discount coupon. Using codes, you can also increase the traffic to your social networks by giving your customers a chance to like or share posts on the platforms.

Creating the perfect product can take a long time, which is why you shouldn’t let the competition steal away your customers. You don’t need a whole team of experts to build a sustainable platform for communicating with your users. Using QR code is one of the easiest UI tools that can help build your branding and customer onboarding in 2020.

Трендовете за 2020 г. и малкият мощтен QR-код

QR-кодовете са много повече от поредният маркетинг инструмент, който е на мода. Този малък квадратен код ви дава възможност да създаде комуникация със своите клиенти на ниво, в което вие удължавате процеса на onboarding. Именно създаването на форма на обвързаност между дадения продукт или фирма с потребителите, е в основата на трендовете за 2020 г. С прилагането на QR-код вие спомагате за изграждането на своя Branding, като давате възможност на своите потребители да общуват директно с вашия продукт, без усложнения или излишни действия.

Мобилен маркетинг за всеки потребител с помощта на QR-код

Различни проучвания показват, че потребителите все по-често се информират онлайн през мобилните си устройства за продуктите, които купуват. Те не просто искат да бъдат сигурни, че инвестират в най-качествените продукти, но желаят да могат да общуват с марките и фирмите, от които пазаруват. Когато младеж си закупува готова смес за печене на пай, той не винаги знае как точно да приготви крайния продукт. Голяма част от интернет потребителите търсят видеа онлайн, за да се научат как могат да готвят, затова с помощта на QR-код с видео за точното приготвяне на пая, този младеж може бързо и лесно да види какво точно се изисква за рецептата, без да се притеснява дали правилно е прочел описанието.

Как да създадете успешен маркетинг с QR-код?

QR-Code генераторът е най-лесният инструмент как да превърнете иначе черно-белият квадрат, в брандиран елемент, със CTA и множество разнообразни дизайни, които да допълнят оформлението на вашия продукт. Платформата предлага и най-детайлните характерстики, за да следите ROI във всяка кампания.

Връзката между продукт и потребител никога не е била толкова къса. С помощта на QR-код няма да има нужда да чакате вашите клиенти да препишат дълъг URL, за да получат купон за намаления. С помощта на кодовете може да увеличите и трафикът към социалните мрежи, като дадете шанс на своите клиенти да харесат или споделят постове в платформите.

Приготвянето на идеалният продукт може да отнеме много време, именно затова не оставяйте конкуренцията да впечатли вашите клиенти. Не ви е необходимо цял екип от експерти, за да създадете устойчива платфома за общуване с вашите потребители. Добавянето на QR-код е един от най-лесните UI инструмент, който може да спомогне за изграждането на вашия branding и customer onboarding.

Slowly in the morning, the gloomy sky showed short winds, typical of August. As they stepped out of the door, the drops began to rumble quietly on the car’s glass. I had already prepared the umbrellas, warm clothes and drinks. Weimar expected us 350 km away.

The grey clouds make our company all the way, but when we finally cross the border of the former division of Germany it is felt that even the weather here is ready to be more hospitable.

We spend the whole afternoon walking around the city. We stay at the A & O Hostel/Hotel, which is near the centre. Pleasantly surprised by beautiful streets, laughing people and warm sunshine. It’s Saturday, and we know this is our last chance to buy some sort of ridiculous souvenir, but instead, we’re starting to search for something to eat.

In Weimar, there is a big number of restaurants — traditional, slightly more non-standard, cafes, sweetshops. But my friend and I are forced to choose not so much between the great variety as the impossibility of finding a place to sit down. We separated from the noisy centre and headed for the less lively streets. Near the Court, we were attracted by an Indian restaurant.

An obligatory condition to walk in Weimar is to visit this place. The service is on the level, the food is delicious and the mango shake — an unforgettable experience.

The second day, after a brief reflection of the many museums that are in the area, points us to Buchenwald, one of the World War II camps.

The creepy feeling that you are coming to a place full of blood and history begins from the „Blutstraße“ that leads to it. We take audio guides and we go to the camp with the map.

Stopped in time Buchenwald tells more in silence than horrific views. The horrors are replaced by the real stories of the people who were once imprisoned here.

Buchenwald is one of those places that look beautiful, benevolent, embraced by beautiful scenery, which has become the final home of hundreds of thousands of people who died in inhumane conditions of labour and torture.

We finish our visit and head to the Archives of Nietzsche, which unfortunately did not work that day. So, without much reflection, we head to Belvedere Castle. The sun welcomes us in the company of many people who have decided to spend the afternoon in the park. A splendid garden and fragrant flowers encompass almost the entire area, and the view of Weimar is breathtaking.

Among the great thoughts of Nietzsche about the life and the stories of Goethe, we managed to travel, without getting lost, between the great work and the cruelty.

Some time ago I wrote a short article on what can help you find your place in the world. But reading about success and its steps is quite different from what you really need to do to get it.

Age of 23 — How to find yourself

In fact, before I have changed my mind, I would say that this should have been another attempt to inspire people like me, who are on the verge of a passing age, to seek success and not to be afraid to achieve it. But instead of explaining, in which I’m really good at, I’d rather try to follow my own advice.

Age of nowhere is my self-fabricated attempt to explain how I am — I’m grown, but I’m not having a job. After a month I will end up with the university and for the first time in my 23-year life I will be simply and easily “unemployed”. No, it sounds too bitter — I’m going to be human, in a life creative leave (like most professors).

And while other colleagues are filming their offices and vacations, I stand in the company of a mosquito and the warmth of the hot summer. At such times I actually realize that I have all the time in the world, even if it is not exactly like this. But it is a fact that my current state will change radically in a few weeks.

And here is my little life crisis — how can I achieve to work what I like in a foreign country where I will live for the first time alone and away from all my family and friends?

For years I have been saying that some things find you at the right time, but I think it’s too late to wait for that moment to suddenly appear. I suppose there are many more people like me who are at that moment and are of some age, dressed in the unpleasant feeling of not knowing where you belong anymore.

And because I know there are others like you, write me an email or contact me through social networks. All of that age of nowhere have a history that is worth being heard and dreams that not only small children have the right to chase, but we too.

LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

The purpose of this review is to look at the forms of discrimination in Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus’s “The Shape Of Water”, Kathryn Harkup’s “Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”, and Heather Morris’ “The Tattooist of Auschwitz”.

The books selected for this purpose will frame the topic of discrimination, manifested in different forms, in different times and ways. In their entirety, the base of their ideas is on the aggressive division between people.

In the first book “The Shape Of Water “ by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus, the storyline history covers the everyday life of mute Elisa Esposito, who works at a Baltimore governmental Laboratory, around the time of the Cold War. Together with his colleague Zelda, they clean the large halls where all kinds of animal and experiments are carried out. Until one day, when one of the laboratories was brought in a man-amphibian of the Amazon, who was considered God of the tribes there. Elisa has an unusual interest in the strange being and secretly visits him as she begins to fall in love with him.

Elisa attaches herself to the unfamiliar creature gradually, beginning to communicate with him in the language of the deaf. Thanks to the eggs she carries with her and the characters she repeats with him, she is able to make a form of communication that helps them connect.

In essence, the story of Elisa and the strange being is surrounded by small key moments indicating discrimination between people. One of them is the example of a young couple of blacks who were driven out of a fast-food restaurant because of their skin color during one of the conversations between the characters. General Richard Strickland, who runs the center and the laboratories in which the action unfolds, speaks disparagingly to Elisa because of her illness, but to her colleague Zelda — because of the color of her skin.

This obvious discrimination between the characters in the book evolves into action until the very finale when the culmination is observed. Richard Strickland, though with a negative image, is a man of faith and a believer who questions the divine origin of the being. It is this distinction that can be noticed from the very beginning with the visible racism towards the people with different skin color, which is saturated in history, reaching the very conclusion in which the general turns to Elisa with the words that man-amphibian is not “normal” and “like them “. The use of various forms of discrimination against people — from bosses and wipers to skin and race color — gives a clearer framework for the problems people have experienced at the time, but they are now still encountering.

In her book “Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” Kathryn Harkup closely analyzes Mary Sherry’s “Frankenstein” work. The original idea of ​​1818 for the unnatural creature continued to cause interest until today. Catherine Harkup tries to give a clearer picture of the era — from the discoveries to the discrimination that led to the 18th and 19th centuries.

The story of the genius Dr. Frankenstein is known in its fullness, but Kathryn Harkup makes an overview of all those indicators that make up the meaningful basis of history. One is directly related to the life of Mary Sherry and her relatives.

Mary Sherry bears her mother’s name, which resides shortly after her birth. The writer’s father takes the decision to revive the name of her beloved because she is directly tied to their child. In the Frankenstein book, the doctor experiences a conscious dislike of the creature he has created, leaving him for nothing. Later, when he learns to read, he understands Frankenstein is far from treating him as he should. This is where Kathryn Harkup examines the idea of ​​slavery, which, though more fictitious, has still been seen in the nineteenth-century countries. Mary Sherry and her husband have long been interested in countries where people with different skin color are forced to live as slaves. This inspires the writer to play with the appearance of the Frankenstein creature, giving him more distinctive features typical of the Negro race.

Frankenstein’s discrimination against his “child” is one of the reasons he faces him. Kathryn Harkup pays more attention to the scientific outlook of the novel, but also examines the psychological causes of the events that led to the creation of these characters. The creature does not realize that its creator does not behave well until he learns to read, which shows that in this case, contrary to the “The Shape Of Water” story, the forced absence of communication gives some protection. But defending himself from the being, Frankenstein repels him, making him one of the first ominous characters in the literature.

In a different epoch, the story of Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It tells of the life of Lale Sokolov from Slovakia, who was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. At 26, without a job, a woman and children, he is different from everyone else. At Camp Lale is forced to replace his name with the number “32407”. There he meets tattoo Pepan who decides to teach him the only craft he can keep alive. It is these actions that determine the love story that will be born in the enclosures of Auschwitz.

The author, Heather Morris, met Lale Sokolov in 2003, when the man decided to tell his story for the first time. During their meetings, Lale tells of how he was one of the few who lived in almost human conditions because of the work he did and the languages ​​he spoke. Still, he says he wakes up every day with the thought that he is still alive today. So one day, among many other prisoners, meets Gita — a weak girl, on whom she must put numbers indicating her identity. She later turned out to be the companion of his life.

The time around World War II is filled with truly ominous stories that reveal the violence caused by the Nazis. But Heather Morris decides that this picture is just the background to the action in the novel. At that time, only those who were fit for some kind of work were tattooed in camps. So the soldiers have more easily distinguished the people who went to the gas chambers. Tulle tells a little about the inhumane conditions in which everyone was, and his only job was to write the hands of the people standing in front of him with numbers-no matter whether he is a man, a woman or a child.

In this story, discrimination is at many different levels that indicate the inhuman attitude of the Nazis to the Jews. Against the backdrop of the action that inevitably goes through this period, the emergence of a love story is indeed a challenge. But the presentation of what is happening is not as responsive to what people expect to read. Speaking to Radio RTE, Edel Gopi draws attention to the overwhelming devaluation of Holocaust victims. According to her, Heather Morris has largely failed to give due respect to the people who have lost their lives, as well as the adequate presentation of the conditions in which the events took place. The main storyline surrounding the love story is beautiful, but the rest of the picture is incompletely exposed.

Heather Morris’s dedication to detail in the specific period can also be seen as focusing on the love story between the two. The discrimination of the Nazis towards the Jews in the book is in the opposite direction. There is more interest in the history of Lale and Gita than in others. Ignore by the author can really be considered rudeness, taking into account the context of the book. It is here that there is a less implicit discrimination to a statistic than perished, at the expense of the love of two lovers.

In the presented books there are manifold forms of discrimination between people. In the form of water, the main characters obviously distinguish their actions from other characters, the main points being based on race and social status. A rather secretive form of pronounced division is seen in Kathryn Harkup’s “Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” where the author managed to present some of the indicators that led to the creepy development of Frankenstein’s story. And while in the first two books the story is based on a complete or partial fiction, in the last “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris, the story of Lale Sokolov clearly outlines the discrimination and ill-treatment of people in the worst period of the last century.

Regardless of the forms of discrimination, the actions that generate such behavior lead to negative results.

“We are used to this, we have all made the mistakes we should have done, otherwise we would not have been here.” — Ray Bradbury, 451 ° Fahrenheit

The story of Edward L. Bernays is just a small part of the essence of what we call Public Relation.

Some information about the “father of manipulation” — he was born in the late 19th century in Vienna. His childhood is surrounded by prominent figures — a thriving father and uncle Sigi (Sigmund Freud). In this “careless” audience, Bernays sees only how small and unsignificantly looks — not only in appearance but also from the inside.

A visionary by nature, Edward is still at an early age when he moved to the United States. World War I welcomed the young Austrian in the company of American Tobacco — the creators of the famous brand of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Tobacco has already found its place in the social space, but it is barely gaining momentum. And here is Bernays.

Men are a winning audience — people who are involved with war fighters. But women — this is a completely different territory, barely studied in its essence. How does Bernays sell cigarettes to women? By manipulation — “instead of overeating with a dessert, smoke a cigarette.” The menus in the restaurants were changed only to include a mandatory dose of nicotine in their menu.

But women are limited in their possibilities of using cigarettes. Society does not accept the idea of ​​women smoking outside, like male representatives. So what does Bernays do after another boss’s wish? He wrote a letter to 30 Vogue debutants, with the idea of ​​waking up women’s interest in fighting for their rights to do whatever they want wherever they want. A truly genius idea gives birth to the “Torch of Freedom” parade. Think about it — nowadays, feminist movements can be built in no less attractive light, and in essence to propagate something hidden, as deep as the participation of Bernays in the parade (about which society learns 40 years later ).

The book continues in the spirit of a time that is borne in wars, bloodlines for Europe and the United States, and a lot of propaganda. Bernays took advantage of this period, taking full control of his knowledge of psychology and communication skills. His views on PR are implicit, and his life cycle is almost implanted. Take the best of your uncle Sigmund Freud and the environment that surrounds him to transform the world, not only then, but also today.

Edward Bernays is a person who is barely disccussed, but he is worth knowing. He is now stripping the famous “image” that PRs build to show that behind their beautiful ideas there are almost terrifying desires, like those in the book, about modern cigarettes that will kill hundreds of thousands of people a year later .

“Sometimes it is possible to change the attitudes of millions, but it is impossible to change the attitudes of one person.”

If you’d like to learn more about Edward Bernays there are plenty of interviews and disccussions about him on YouTube. Some of the them focus mainly on his visions of propaganda, which are applied today.

And while we think we live in a time that is free from the influence, let’s recall the film “Wog the Dogs” with Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. Big PR specialist Conrad Brean finds himself in the snatch of a political scandal. At first sight, things do not look good, but he finds a way to get the US president out of the light of questionable contact with a little girl.

A few days left until the election of a new head of state, and the only solution Conrad can take is to provoke a crisis large enough to distract the public from the scandal. To do this, the expert does almost the impossible: “we will not have a war, it will only look like it.”

The media continue to disclose the suspicious actions of the current president, and Conrad is forced to find help in creating an authentic-looking military environment. So the stage includes Stanley Motts, a film producer who does not know the boundaries of his imagination. For people, the slogans, not the wars, are important, so they are creating the ideal cover for the scandal — a fictional war with Albania, a country so unknown to the US that people never would question its truth.

Stanley and Conrad create the perfect screen, with cinematography, iconic music, and trickery moves, like the magicians, to get the truth in one sleeve, and the other to get an American girl dressed like a poor Albanian with a white cat. It’s simply the PR in all its beauty.

Another story, far less successful (or, on the contrary), is the landing of the moon. Here the main characters are a CIA representative who was supposed to meet Stanley Kubrick, but instead falls to a group of boys who want to get rich by creating movies. The thrilling idea of ​​directing the landing of the Moon puts them in bizarre scenarios where nothing looks like it is. Even the final frames in which the truth must finally be seen seem duly mounted.

One of the many mysteries of mankind remains unseen to this day, but well presented, so that no one doubts the truth, or is it?

The illusory notion that what we see is truth is only part of the manipulation that builds the world in the last 50–60 years. Or, as one professor said:

“The best way to fight propaganda is with more propaganda.”

He enters the night under the rhythm of jazz, squeaky chairs, and a volatile aroma of steamy conversations in dark corners. Haruki Murakami is a tightening need to be present consciously and to fly between the lines as if the white spaces hide your most sexually unrestrained thoughts. Are you sinking or will you swim?

Murakami can be spoken of as the part of you who, at night after big and small hours, still wakes up, looks at the night and stripes those daily restraints. Like the Japanese writer’s habits, he writes his books in those thin hours, when the border of sleep and consciousness is most blurred.

Murakami’s stories are like those strange tales you love to hear about people who have experienced the incredible, but you know they are just a fiction. You believe in the existence of that magical ingredient just because you want to make the world an idea more, to add value to what you call “life.”

Like Roland Barthes, Murakami stripped off texts, characters, made them sexually and textually overwhelmed with intrusive humanity, burned them in words, pounded them into passion, and eventually let them burst between the rows. And as much as men claim that the naked bodies are most desirable, it is in the unbuttoned shirts that the real passion lies. Murakami can strip his characters, but recognizes them only in their nudity of spirit, when between them and the world remains only the thin border of the voice.

I have long described texts as “Sputnik, sweetheart” and “Kafka on the Shore” as existential attraction forces, which is impossible not to embrace with all your heart. The stories of Miu — the Sun woman and Sumire, along with the confused Kafka, are just a small part of the characters who wear a casual everyday life, stripping and hanging it every night to their homewear. In their seeming strangled weightlessness, in which Murakami inevitably places them, they engage themselves in the other side.

The magical element extramuraly exists in the Bulgarian frontiers, and our well-known authors such as Pavel Vezhinov and Svetoslav Minkov, who play skillfully between realism and fiction. Although I am genuinely in love with the magical story of “Scales”, I can not conceal my bias to the Japanese author. But actually my first touch with Vezhinov exploded beyond my consciousness the opportunity to re-discover the world in the white fields.

It is in that part of the page that is not full of words that one can find meaning that is somehow lost. I remember when I took my first book on Murakami and how quickly I filled the white spaces with thoughts that just came up while I was reading — whether it would be a Beatles song or a long-forgotten story. It’s beautiful how it can be born so much in the notes that one’s almost carelessly remains.

Another invariable part of Murakami’s world is the man, spelled with a small letter. A person with whom you can not help but meet when you crawl the stories. Stories in which a male representative is in the key position of a suffering hero who lives in such a conventional framework that his almost violent extraction is marked as an emblematic moment. Within such limits you may find yourself in the “Norwegian Wood” — the Beatles song, which will haunt you for years, every time you hear it. Toru’s life is like this song, which begins in a reverse-retrospect of a life, full with meanings. In his body there are memories that he can not close, they have stolen from him his most beautiful years, and now they are pursuing his most recent. The body knows age, the way the mind can not.

One can never fully adjust within Murakami. This magical thread, which we inevitably want to exist, always escapes, but it flips in the air. At certain degrees, like water, it turns into steam but also gently intoxicating, and in the cold minutes it makes you soothed and makes your hair white (O, Sputnik). Life, more sufficating then the small Japanese homes in Tokyo, with the size of a bigger coffin in which everyone falls asleep, waking up a bit more alive than last night, but closer to death. And though space is born in the air, space does not always give us air. Sometimes man builds walls, narrower than his own ideas, and he prefers to breathe more heavily to feel physical pain in the chest.

However, one likes to stumble on the same paths, to undress certain bodies, to undress others (albeit only in the reflection), to crush the flaws in himself, to press with all its strength those memories that like those last pounds, he can not just take off himself. Man is not built of skeleton and muscles to live in perfect balance, but on the contrary, everything that almost viciously tilts the scales, gives birth to the real essentials. Not in the perfect lines, but in the scars we hide under makeup, clothes, laughter and smiles. It is for these little things that Murakami finds the importance of letting go, stripping the sexuality and breaking the human soul under the rhythm of old songs.

And are you ready to sink in one breath?

Late morning, long dinners, but what, in fact, remains for everything that you always plan to start, but never get to it?

From long-awaited diets to those favorite last 5 minutes of sleep there is so much that one can change in a single blink. Even at the moment when I once again say that I would prefer to hang out with a glass of wine and a nice movie, I stand here in front of you.

Surely dozens of times, if not more, you have come to a person who looks like the perfect example of what you want and you can achieve. A girlfriend has dropped 30 pounds, your colleague in work has been promoted to a position you want, and that second-floor neighbor bought her bag you saw last month at the store. And if it’s not just a coincidence …

In fact, nothing happens so casually in life, and that’s probably one of the surest things to say. One person among millions of others on Earth is unlikely to have come under any mystical form of deliberate inconvenience. Maybe you do not realize, but every minute of your everyday life is what you really are.

Maybe you love to push the alarm button, but you can not get out of bed, and maybe you always promise to go to the gym on January 1st. I bet you’re currently scrolling in your mind at least 10 things like that — some tales of the past that you know you did not accomplish, but you say “I have time”. But this is not quite the case.

Let us remind ourselves of those three people I mentioned earlier. Your girlfriend, who has dropped 30 pounds, is the one that made you 6 months ago to go with her to the gym. Then you decided that these things were not for you because you did not have the right gym clothes and shoes, so never went with her.

And that colleague who received the promotion you thought it was expecting you? He told you about 1 year ago that he started French courses, and only two months ago he went on his first business trip to Paris, which you knew earlier and than him.

And the neighbor from the second floor with the new bag? Well, she’s just one of those women who get what they want.

The stories from these 3 people, who inevitably come under a different but close to this form, in your environment, have achieved what you are saying you have “time”.

In life, many things can happen while you are making future bills for the eventuality. Surely, you have struggled for a long time with the extra pounds that don‘t go off, no matter how much you drink water. You probably want to get some form of promotion, but you still say you do not have the skills to ask for more. And in your budget, you rarely have money for luxuries, which you do not need but want very much.

All this is a result of the “time” you hope to have in the future. But how long do you repeat that? I have seen colleagues who say this about writing their Bachelor theses, though they know for more than a year that they “have no time”, they postpone it. The limit of this delay is approaching, but the sense of “time” is too far-reaching.

And while you read this under the sound of everyday life, in a comfortable position, someone reads a book, learns a new language, creates professional relationships, or just does what you say you “have time” for.

“Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.”

- Anonymous

Everyday we create a framework of our life that is built up by activities that we believe are helping our existence. Everything that defines us, thanks to our identity. We let us be determined by the labels we buy, the devices we use, and an appurtenance that we want to impose ourselves.

Can you imagine a place where all of this is gone?

Have you ever heard of Mumbai? And do you know what Slums of Mumbai are? These are neighborhoods in India overcrowded with people who live in small rooms in buildings without sanitation.

Today I wont tell you about the inhumane living conditions that are inherent in this end of India, I won’t even try to describe the cruel picture from the piles of waste that flood the streets. Contrary to everything negative, like almost every human story, I will present you the other side of the different people like us.

In this almost apocalyptic picture live people who you certainly think are bathed with basins and do not know what a toothpaste is. You are not far from the truth. One of the few things you don’t even know about this region is how many Indians are entrepreneurs who are developing their own businesses. Some are tailors and chefs, and other successful businessmen.

Surely, watching the living conditions in this region, you can hardly imagine what efforts are required to achieve something. Even if you are convinced that they are just different from us, then this is not quite true. Can you imagine living there? Trying to make your dreams come true in a world that is far from home-like cosiness?

If these Indians, who know only the labels of their clothes, can try to learn languages, become entrepreneurs and work on their development, what’s left for all of us? What is your excuse?

Nothing can define you better than your will to success.

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”

- Oscar Wilde

Inspired by: Jacob Laukaitis’s trip to Mumbai