How I Changed My Perspective

In Motivation by Helle SondergaardLeave a Comment

Four years ago I left Denmark to go to Australia with $500 in my bank account, and an Au Pair job waiting for me in Brisbane. Facebook told me that in my “memories” the other day.

Four years. It doesn’t really sound like that long to me, but it feels like a lifetime ago!

Let’s rewind to 6 months before I was about to head off.

I was studying law at University and doing my best to find my path and my passions within the norms of society. I’d been struggling with this concept since 8th grade when I started getting questions like “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and “what do you want to study?”

These questions were always so impossible for me to answer. I had a new answer every time, and I was convinced that I was the problem in the scenario. Who, at the age of 15,16,17 …  hell, even 25, knows what they want to do for the rest of their life?

Well I didn’t, but I thought law was interesting (I am a libra after all), because it involved being objective to the parties, and making sure things were fair according to rules that were collectively agreed upon. Everyone gets the same treatment and fairness. Oh and the security! Law = job.

But after one and a half years, I started getting these balls of anxiety in my stomach. Was I ever going to travel, which had always been my big dream? Did I even want to be a lawyer, wearing heels, suits, and working 60-70 hour weeks? Did I want to be part of that very competitive Universe, where feelings and soft values seemed so non-existent? Was I ever going to travel?

I really couldn’t see myself in that world anymore, and I became more and more depressed from crushed dreams and defying my heart. I was, am, and always will be a soft, emotionally driven, passionate freedom-seeker, and I wanted to be free and see the world. I didn’t want to be a lawyer in Denmark. I didn’t want a house with the white picket fence with a dog and 2 kids. I didn’t want any of that.

I wanted adventure, experiences, open-mindedness, connection, culture, language. I wanted freedom.

So after a turbulent time of “yes, no, maybe I can do it, I just need to change myself, okay fuck this shit, aaarhh”, I finally made the decision to drop out of University. A couple of months later, I went to an information meeting at the University for a different program, and met this girl who had been an Au Pair in Sydney, Australia for a year, and she told me about her amazing time there.

BAM! That was it! This is what I needed to do! I had always been fascinated by Australia. It was now or never. If I really wanted to travel before going back to University, this was my time to do it.

So I made the decision – I was going to be an Au Pair in Australia for 6 months until my University program started in September.

Fast forward three and a half years … Of course, that didn’t happen, because I found myself in ways I had never found myself within the norms. So I ended up staying in Australia for two years and then I headed to New Zealand for another nine months before going back to Australia for another year.

I was never really able to find what I was looking for in Denmark, because I needed a new perspective. I needed a change of patterns to discover the answers.

We don’t all fit into the boxes, and that’s totally okay! It would be weird if we did. Sometimes all we need is a new perspective to discover the solution that actually do fit, and everything else will fall into place.

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