DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE FUTURE

The future is never certain. The only thing we can be sure about is that changes are coming. Change is the only constant and unavoidable thing in this world.

Allright, having gotten these philosophical truisms out of the way, I would now like to share with you some specific changes that I am facing and dealing with in my life at the moment.

An old photo from 2011. I wish I really felt as cheerful in the face of change as I look in this picture.

As many of you know, I work as a language teacher. I am teaching Swedish to grown-ups (age 20 and up), newly arrived immigrants and refugees. The work is meaningful and fun, the students are grateful and nice, the enterprise that employs me is decent and good, and my two bosses are awesome people (I actually consider them my friends). Also, a majority of my teacher colleagues are into crypto, so it’s a fun workplace too. However, all this is coming to an end soon. The educational project I’m employed at is going to be terminated sometimes this spring and another company is going to take over a follow-up project shortly after. Which means that all of us (including my boss) are going to be laid off on March 31st. There’s a chance that the Swedish Public Employment Agency (Arbetsförmedlingen in Swedish) might prolong the project one month at a time, and thus our contract will be extended until May (or June, or July).

Obviously, we need to prepare for this upcoming transition. My colleagues are using different strategies: some of them are already looking for a new job, some have their own private companies to fall back to (I do too, but my enterprise has been sort of neglected in the past two years, due to the lack of time and energy). The older ones are choosing to retire after this altogether. I myself haven’t made up my mind yet.

I know that I probably won’t continue teaching. These past two years have been very rewarding and interesting, but demand for these educational services is decreasing, as immigration to Sweden had been severely limited in the end of 2015. I also feel like I’m ready to do something different. So doing a similar job for another employer is not an appealing option for me.

Another option is going back to the public sector or civil society. In the past I’ve worked both for the Swedish state, for a municipal government, and for a number of large environmental NGOs. These type of jobs can be meaninful and fun too (they can also be bureaucratic and boring), but they would be more demanding than my current job and I’m not sure I have energy for them at this time. I am considering it, but it’s not a very likely option right now.

The third option is doing something just for fun. My idea of “fun” would be going to Japan and resuming my language studies there. One of my life goals is to become somewhat fluent in Japan – up to a degree when I could look for job in Japan, or at least be able to teach English there. Both learning Japanese and teaching English in Japan sounds like fun things to me! I am looking into two private language schools in Japan, one in Tokyo and another in Fukuoka, checking their prices and conditions. Both look great, but I’ll have to make up my mind soon, if I want to start studying sometimes in September or October this year.

There’s a fourth option, too. If I get accepted to an international MBA programme in Finance at Lund University in the south of Sweden, I might choose to do that for a year. The programme is in English and it’s relatively short, so I believe I could do it. Also, I did my previous graduate programme in Lund (Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science) and it was the happiest time in my life. I think it would be really fun to be a student again, a part of an international class, learning about financial system (and, hopefully, how best to disrupt it with decentralised crypto solutions). I really want to put my passion for crypto to use in a more professional way than how I’ve been doing it until now.

So, these are my main options. For the life of me, I cannot make up my mind right now. I think I’m just too exhausted and stressed out to see and feel things clearly. Also, moving out of my apartment and leaving Gävle feels like a major hurdle. I managed to make it my home in the past two and a half years, so leaving it all behind won’t be completely painless.

I am also trying to figure out what to do once my current job ends and before the next thing – whatever it turns out to be – starts. I’ll probably hang around, spending time reading, working out (I’ve been neglecting it for the past couple of months now), and brushing up on my Japanese skills. In the summer I have some trips already planned – some cool international week-long events in Portugal and Denmark. I would also like to visit Finland and Iceland, in case if I’ll be leaving Europe for Japan in the autumn. And maybe I’ll stop by my parents’ place in Southern Russia. They are getting old and we don’t see each other that often.

I am working on building up my savings – to use later, once I’m unemployed and don’have a reliable source of income. Thanks to my earlier investments in crypto I don’t face a risk of immediate financial destitution, but I wouldn’t want to live off my crypto savings alone. I can imagine that posting more regularly here on Steem, sharing stories of my adventures in the world, could help sustain me financially too. Actually, my earnings on Steem might become a major source of income, once my current job has run its course.

So, this is my current situation and a few possible scenarios for the future. What do you reckon? Do you think it’s realistic to survive by blogging on Steem? (I know that some people manage to do just that and are quite successful at that). Do you think I should follow my heart and leave for Japan? Or should I think more in terms of my future career and focus more on another job or a degree? And what should I do to worry less about the future and embrace the change? All and any advice, tip, and words of support will be greatly appreciated, as always!