Who‘s the crazy one?

I know it sounds totally insane. To put your apartment up for sale… Leave your recently established company and business partners on their own… Sell all your furniture and give your beloved dog, less adored car and quite decent washing machine to your parents for temporary adoption… Then spend all your life savings for one purpose only. I think I experienced quite many symptoms of an early “middle aged crisis” after I first announced my plans for the future.

I did try to fight against it at first. Wouldn’t a new hobby be enough? Having an English language course at TAKK? Buying a saxophone? Taking part in a salsa class? Changing the apartment – perhaps even moving to the countryside? But no, reasoning didn’t work. Have you gotten that feeling inside you that you may have been able to ignore for years, but suddenly takes such a strong grip that there’s just no way out? No excuses, no negotiating – the only choice is to do it.

So I did it. Here I am. Moved from Tampere, Finland to Dundee, Scotland. Changed from being a settled, self-sufficient, working adult living on her own to a scrimping, restless, feeling-stupid-and-insufficient dorm tenant and postgraduate student. Suffering from stress, poor heating, low water-pressure shower, work overload, early mornings, late nights and disgraceful diet. The funniest thing is that I’m actually enjoying every moment of it!

Each fear I had before leaving (and some of which I almost used as an excuse for not leaving) has proven to be wrong. I wasn’t the oldest person ever entering the University of Dundee or its student accommodation; I

Who‘s the

crazy one?

Teksti: Anna Kulonen

wasn’t left alone and rejected by my flat mates; I do seem to understand the Scottish accent (and if I don’t, I can always smile and tell them I’m from Sweden); and most importantly, I have actually found some food from Britain that hasn’t been boiled in grease.

So, should you do what I did and follow that inner voice of yours? I’m probably the wrong person to answer, since I’m still on a “honeymoon” with my own dream, but here’s what I think. I think you should ask yourself “why not?” and then after you’ve come up with your 101 reasons of “why not’s”, ask “what would I do, if I wasn’t afraid?”*. I think we both know what the answer would be.

*From the book Who moved my cheese? by Spencer Johnson. I can highly recommend this one.