The Swedish Dream - Live your Myth in Sweden

Moi/Hej everyone.

It has been a while, whoever is left here might have been wondering what is happening. Well to be fair...not that much. I still have my moments, but the bubble of living the Swedish Dream is about to burst. Mostly because of reality checks, my uncertain future in many aspects, as well as my inability to force myself to learn the language yet.

My problem in writing in this blog is twofold. First of all I have studying and 5 courses running on the same time. This along with the economic factor impacts me greatly. I practically have no social life apart from eating ribs that have absolutely no meat from Jaime's barbecues and watching him die from zombies and the Gas-Masked Man in Dying Light while playing on about 2.5 FPS.

How about I write for once how things are going on in Sweden or what actually happened for a change?

One day a took a ferry. I took a ferry at 7:45 am from Stockholm, which meant I had to be there at 7 and wake up at 4:30. I decided to do that the previous night and before I could think about it I found myself in a Viking Line ferry to the Aland Islands and Turku. I felt intimidated in the beginning because I heard stories about dozens of drunk idiotic teenagers that caused mayhem. I ended up having to take a cab to the ferry but it was alright, now I know how to get there again.

The average age on the ship was not as expected. I expected something like 18-30. But it was more like 75ish. I kid you not. The moment those pesky tourist Bangladeshians got off the boat at the Alands the age just kept going up and up. Even the dog I met there was 11 years old (77 human years). Those tourists kept asking for weird info in the reception and I can only commend the poor Finnish guy at the helping desk for his calm as I would have thrown them overboard and yelled "Yarr".

I had my fun and solved a lot of cases in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as 11 hours were too many at some point. And after a couple of days I returned. Same situation, better weather as I went outside and relaxed gazing at the beautiful Swedish archipelago. I took a bunch of pictures but the best one came in Stockholm as I was walking my way back to the Central station.

I absolutely love this city.

I also applied for 2 scholarships. I am about to visit a kennel of Irish Setters. I have 5 courses and 2 of them are really weird. One of them is actually run by students. Last time me and Ebba drew dead fishes there.

Things like this. Ebba was impressed.

I finally got things moving with my thesis. This is a big step for me and I am awaiting anxiously about further news from my Finnish connection in Turku. It has also been a topic of uncertainty and great personal stress to me for various reasons. The land of tears is mysterious and I keep finding myself there. In another course we were asked to split in groups and make a Wikipedia page. 40 people are in the class and 37 are Swedish. Me, Shahar and Fabian are the only internationals it seems. Guess who I got paired with because everyone has their own "favorites". Sweden's multiculturalism is a blatant lie and it is as easy as getting to Canada without a visa unless you speak the local language like a native. Even the teacher started giving the lectures in Swedish before I politely told him to speak English, in an ENGLISH speaking class.

I started eating healthy and not wasting food as much as I can. I am drinking milk, eating salads and trying a bunch of new things. I am also seeing a lot of weird posts by people on Facebook that are really creepy and makes me wonder how many psychopaths walk among us. Maybe I am one myself.

I am not sure if and when I will write again. I am done asking for shares, likes, comments as they have dried as much as my posts lately. I was thinking of transforming it or making a new one and actually be helpful, like making it into an actual hydrology teaching place. We will see what time brings.

Until next time...hyvää yötä, мы будем говорить, vi ses och vi hors, je vous aimes tous και όνειρα γλυκά. 6 languages in all their glory. Puss och kram.

Creating a sustainable future by educating the ones in power first?

 You can read the original publication on my LinkedIn profile.

Where do you begin when you want to talk about creating a sustainable future for everyone? One that involves applying the Doughnut strategy correctly and creating a fist of people that will strive towards a sustainable use of the planet’s resources, eradicating poverty and supplying social justice and a decent quality of life instead of going guns blazing with a new World War 3 being just a blink of an eye away from us?

The doughnut concept is fairly simple as a conception. There is the socially acceptable border, below which conditions are unacceptable for human beings and includes hunger, lack of water supply and sanitation etcetera and the environmental border, above which each and every available resource is stressed and leads to various catastrophic or irreversible actions. Between these two borders then lies the optimum spot for human and socio-economic growth, one that if achieved, humans will develop and prosper while caring for the environment as much as they do for each other and live a quality life.

I have seen a lot of things in my life. I have lived a life of deprivations, depression, civil war-like atmosphere and I can indeed tell you that when you live in conditions like these, when you cannot even cover the basics, you hardly care about the environment. You do not think about the environment. You just want water, you just want food. The only difference is that at that point you will not care about a fancy car or a private jet, or fancy clothes that were produced by hard-working underpaid children in a 3rd World country.

When you look at the articles, you see that they directly “blame” the lifestyle of the rich. And that is blatantly true to me. The real power lies in the rich and powerful people that influence decisions and have done so for centuries, maybe thousands of years. The truth is that with the global economic recession the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. There are too many factors affecting every decision that lie into politics and money, at least that is what I think.

Last semester I did a wonderful research paper regarding the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. It was tied to the expansion of various coal factories especially in the dreaded Abbot Point. The Australian government and the local government of Queensland has identified all the risks and has confirmed the incredible degradation of the GBR through publishing extensive and really detailed reports that underline the problems and propose solutions. On the same time though, they allow actions like these to go through because the economy is so fragile, they need to keep people employed and create opportunities (and whether we like it or not, these expansions create jobs in an already stressed economy). And then most of the coal is exported to the world’s biggest coal user, China. In the end, politics and money talk. I would rather not talk about the tobacco industry as well; a simple YouTube video on Phillip Morris is enough to open your eyes.

So is everything grim? Nothing can be done?

There are always solutions. The world needs to be a fist and led by some exceptional and inspirational people, such as the water laureate winner of the World Water Week 2015 Rajendra Singh, who brought water and sanitation to so many people in India and dedicated his life to battling poverty and eradicating social injustice. I quote him because I had the honor to meet him and his wife personally when I was volunteering there.

So while the rich people are getting richer and have “nested” in the rich parts of the world what happens to that huge percentage that are underfed, have no clean water or sanitation and barely hang on life with prehistoric traditions afraid of change?

I agree with the articles I read that poverty must be eradicated in order to create a sustainable future for everyone. However nobody talked about how this can be achieved. From the World Water Week (WWW) I have learned some important lessons.

First of all, building trust and integrity and establishing a connection between people and governments is vital to the success of this project. If the people have no trust in their own government and their life is full of suspicion how can they embrace change and believe that these changes will lead to a better life? And on the other hand, if the people in power sever that trust by acting dishonorably with their own private agendas how can someone expect them to eradicate social injustice?

Secondly and most importantly, I think the most important thing is education. I cannot stress enough how important it is for people to be educated and undergo careful behavioral change. In order to promote sanitation for people in Africa (for example), one has to take into account behavioral change. People in Nigeria have always lived in the “wild” and it is imprinted for them to defecate in the open instead of a toilet in the house, because they have the behavior that “one does not defecate where he lives”. There is no international guideline that universally works. Cultural and behavioral differences MUST be taken into account when applying actions or making decisions.

Thankfully there are wonderful organizations such as NIRAS, WaterAid and NGO’s all over the world that promote this kind of change and this has brought education about WASH in both Africa and Asia to many poverty stricken countries where social injustice and disparities between the upper and lower class are of titanic proportions.

My next comment is on inequality. Wow where do you even begin on this one? The status of women varies immeasurably all over the world and it is pathetic and sad to see the state we live in while we are in the 21st century. Talking about salary differences between women and men is ridiculous at this point, but also not a topic that needs to be neglected. I have met and seen many powerful women that drive change and are a grace for society. We will get there one day. I trust in humans and looking back just 100 years can show the leaps we have made in progress. From black people considered slaves, to women not being able to drive or vote, I believe that together we can slowly progress and be a unified equal society one day.

But the most blatant and unacceptable issues persist in uneducated, illiterate areas or countries with deep traditions that really need to change if we are to live in the doughnut. Women being considered only breeding material, unable to express themselves or being god forbid stoned to death, pushed off rooftops, having arranged marriages and having no social status is completely unacceptable.

I also don’t like fanatics. People of both sides like pro-green or anti-green, extreme rights or extreme lefts. There is nothing wrong in having passion in what you do but there is a point where you take it too far and then you forget about dialogue and diplomatic solutions. For example I remember last year when Green Peace went into Peru to protest about the energy summit they destroyed the Nazca lines by mistake, a sacred piece of Peruvian history created over 1500-2000 years ago because they did not know yet they did it.

I could go on and on after all the things I read in these articles. Everything that the author said was correct and the doughnut appears to be a distant utopia right now. However I want to leave you all with a question. Since the rich have the power and should be the driving force behind this change that will create a sustainable future much talk has been done regarding educating the poor developing countries. Instead, who says that they are not that ones in need of education? Why don’t they or their governments or whomever is in charge freeze for a second and think:

“Wait a minute, I have the power, I try to promote sustainability and eradicate poverty and injustice, yet I eat more than I need to, I spend more than I need to, I waste food and energy and I do all these activities that stress the environment and our planet.”

Source: Ramsworth, Kate (2012), 'A Safe and Just Space for Humanity,' Oxfam Discussion Paper
 

World Water Week 2015 summary - The Phantom Pain

Hej everyone!

Don't be tricked by The Phantom Pain mentions as I will not talk in detail about the latest Metal Gear game. It is about some of my own thoughts.

It has been a while since the latest post that featured my involvement in the amazing World Water Week 2015 as a volunteer. The last 2 days of that week were way more relaxed compared to the huge influx of people that flocked in the venue in the first 3 days. It still had a lot of standing still and smiling and being helpful and having an awesome time while people said hi on your way back to the train station while not on duty simply because they recognized your face.

On that last Friday i worked in the closing ceremony. I had prepared a small handwritten letter that was for everyone in the SIWI staff to read along with some greek pasteli, a very famous, healthy delight from Kalamata. I still remember how Sofia Widforss hugged me that day with a huge smile on her face. I want to personally thank Irina, Erik, Adrian, Darius, Gabriella, Yvonne for this awesome opportunity.

What was the result of all of this? Well for starters i don't think there is a better opportunity to meet and network with people than such a conference. I met important people from all over the world, CEOs from Sweco, i got invited to the Finnish Environment Institute and hopefully that will lead to work one day.

This past week has been a mixed bag. I started my new courses and that marks an important period in my life, since it is the last academic semester where i will have actual courses, not counting the master  thesis as one. Some of them have become increasingly weird and involve a lot of drawing and sketching.

Well, that is a course about sustainability.

On the positive note i had quite some fun, i met many new people, students that i have been contacting through the phone to welcome them in their new master's, working a bit in student nations wearing pink shirts, going out for amazing food and walks and a lot of shopping. A lot of shopping. I also visited Jaime's family and they invited me for dinner and they scared another certain individual that got scarred for life from over-socializing Mediterraneans :D

When it comes to the pain, i have actually been watching Big Boss's latest adventure. In fact i am watching the uknighted twitch stream right now with Drk whining about the conclusion to the series. Please support them if you like the series. They are running an awesome 500+ hour marathon which is completely insane!

Other than that i have had several internal conflicts i had to handle this past 2-3 weeks. I can only imagine how hard it is for the other affected people as well. It is that fragile point where you don't want to hurt anyone but it happens whether you like it or not. And then all that trust and integrity goes to hell and it all spirals down in a ghostly pain that eats you from the inside.

It will all be fine. I just wanted to keep writing a bit today. I am alone at home now. Hopefully now that i am starting to recover i will have more interesting things to say or do. I was hopping to make a tour of all the student nations and write a small review about them. That will depend on my workload and my mood really. I still wonder how i keep going but whether i like it or not this blog has survived for 1.5 year now.

Until next time, stay tuned! En stor kram dear friends!

World Water Week 2015 - Being the face of SIWI

Since i arrived in Sweden last Wednesday everything has been like a snowball, moving forward and gaining momentum like a fist ready to punch through concrete. I did not imagine in my wildest dreams on May 21st this year what would happen during the World Water Week 2015 where i was selected from the cream of the crop of applicants to be an ambassador for Sweden and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) from the 23rd of August until the 28th.

Norra Latin, one of the two main buildings of the conference.

As i arrived last Saturday for the meeting of the volunteers and the staff of SIWI i knew something special was brewing. We were briefed for 3 hours about our duties and given a quick look of the premises which consisted of two main buildings, Norra Latin and Folkets Hus. It is a change of venue from the previous years and a welcome change for the 25th anniversary of the World Water Week conference that has been held since 1991.

We would host important people like ministers from all over the world and Africa, the prime minister of the Marshall Islands and Jordan, the prime minister of Sweden and mayor of Stockholm and the Water Laurette Winner from India. Who is a fantastic person i might add.

The exhibition area with a lovely view near the fountain.

Sunday came and we got off on a flying start. I held my posts proudly and with an aura of positivity that accompanied my never ending beaming smile. I was strutting around assisting people, saying hi and chatting with them in every opportunity. 3500 people registered for the event and i have talked to most of them and it still staggers me that i can remember so many faces and names.

The volunteers are awesome people from all over the world. Africa, Mexico, USA, Spain, Germany, Sweden, the UK and other amazing countries. I have met and talked with most of them and everyone is so warm and receptive, though i probably look a little bit odd to them. But i am Mediterranean, that is what i am supposed to do right?!

Long story short until today i have been snowballing relentlessly with every day being better than the previous one. My confidence is building so much and i have made valuable friends everywhere. From my partner in crime in shitty jokes Amanda to Clair from the Australian Murray-Darling Basin and everyone in the Finnish Ministry booth. Today we had some wonderful chat with Nynke and special credit goes to Esther for the fancy outfit she wore today and the awesome pictures we took with important people.

Left to right - Yvonne, Amanda, AwesomeMe, Anna, Constantin and Nynke.

My most valuable memories are so many it would take me hours to write them all down. It has been an engrossing and immersing experience that i recommend to everyone. Not only you network and improve your visibility to the job market but you also assist in a great cause, whether it is for water, for land, for poverty or for sustainability.

I met a managing director in Sweco that sent me an SMS with her details, i got an invite to the Finnish Environment Institute and have won the affection of everyone and that makes me so unbelievably happy that i cannot express myself right now. A whirlwind of emotions has taken over me and even though i am tired from commuting every day from 5 am from Uppsala to Stockholm i am able to find the strength to power through and give my best self as the image of SIWI.

And i haven't even talked about the SIWI staff yet. The other day Gabriella, the woman in charge of the logistics came to me in the SIWI sofa booth and told me that everyone loves me, from staff to people. I felt such joy and pride that i completely forgot how sore my feet were. Irina, the project organizer is always so busy yet she approached me today and remembered i speak Russian and we had a wonderful exchange of words. Ingrid is a Duracell-Powered robot that never runs out of battery and she walks from end to end managing and fixing things. Erik, Adrian, Sofia are more busy people that we don't talk to them so often but they are always approachable and receptive. Lastly there is Yvonne, the event and volunteer coordinator who even though i know her for like 4 days i would stick my neck out for her blindfolded. She is awesome and deserves credit. WWW is her baby too.

Did someone say the city hall is made of PURE gold?!

I can go on and on and on. I can talk about the people i met from HSBC and their work with WWF, WaterAid and Earthwatch or about the wonderful Finnish lady Oona Rautiainen, a junior expert in the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy of Finland treating me with unprecedented respect and friendliness.

And the best thing of them all is i never asked them for anything. I just was myself, doing my job and always smiling. I seized my chance by the hair. You can do it too! Volunteer for anything you can! Volunteer for WWW 2016! In the meantime my flatmates have arrived, Dimitra with a lot of Tsipouro and Ruta with a lot of Harry Potter lizard jokes. Oh lets not forget Marta. Her memory is getting worse. Sort of like the Greek economy to quantify it.

I will go die now as i am in dire need of rest and as usual i work tomorrow. I will keep you updated!

Until next time, Goodnight Sverige, Goodnight World!

My job hunting experience as a new graduate

This is a post i wrote for LinkedIn and thought I should share it here too. Feel free to connect with me there too. Here is the original post.

 

Well first of all i want to say i love Sweden and Finland. Starting this new post invited me to bring it to life with a picture. I could not find a better picture than the one i took in Levi - Finland last Christmas.

Levi - Finnish Laplands.

Who am I? I am Kostas, an environmental engineer from Greece and a soon-to-be hydrogeologist. I moved to Sweden last year and it has been the best decision of my life. I have instilled in me the swedish values but i always keep that fiery Mediterranean personality within me.

I have been reading and reading posts around here about everything. From depression, to burnout, to mentors to how to land the job of your dreams. But most of them have been from the experienced person's perspective, one that has worked their way up the ladder for years, sometimes decades and share their stories with us. This is my take on job hunting, CVs and keeping that motivation high as a "new" graduate.

1. Know what you want.

This is the most fundamental advice I can give for someone that is starting or confused on how to proceed. You see, when you have a clear goal and you really want something your brain will automatically begin to formulate a plot and a plan how to achieve this target. We live in an age of great economic depression and I come from a country that the jobs are scarce and the salaries are not enough even for the basic needs of a family. However that does not mean that i will compromise and pick up any job that will not make me happy or just to get some experience. When i look at a position i always research the respective company to see if its values match mine and my aspirations for the future. This way they can get the most out of me and in return they will have a loyal, HAPPY productive and efficient worker.

2. Be a man/woman of action, not just a keyboard warrior or full of words.

When i decided i would move to Sweden to restart my life and kick-start my career it was a decision. I immediately put things into action. I didn't stall, I didn't think about it a lot, I just did what had to be done. Being decisive and taking action is a valuable quality that is also requested in many roles wherever you apply.

Fear of failure is hard to overcome sometimes, but it is the same such as approach anxiety for men. When a man hesitates to directly approach an interesting female for example approach anxiety creeps in and they don't do it, for the reason that they fear rejection and failure. Then they think about the possible scenarios and outcomes and even rehearse endless lines in their head. But in the end they just don't do it. This is a vague example but it could not be more real and comparable as when you have to make a really important life choice you think the same way. Or you could have the attitude of "What am I going to accomplish?".

Change your way of thinking. You are awesome. You are unique. And you can do everything you ever wanted.

3. Have the right attitude.
It is a fact that companies hire people on skills and fire them on attitude. Kudos to Rintu Basu for that phrase. Companies indeed dread to hire the wrong person as it involves so much problem to hire them, fire them, picking their replacement, paperwork and compensations. It is a nightmare. I have fired people in my own company, believe me I know very well.
Developing the right mindset is SO important. It begins with tip number 1 up there. And it continues to the job hunt, CV and later the interview stage. There are 3 types of attitude and 2 of them will not work for you. Period.

• The defeated candidate: So here enters a prospective candidate for the job. He slouches, he does not look you in the eye, he literally begs for the job. He is not confident and he just looks defeated from the moment he enters the door. Would you hire him and trust him with your valuable position?
• The arrogant candidate: Then the other type enters. He is overconfident with a big ego, thinks that he is king of the world and has a swagger about him that smells clash and tough exchanges. Remember, companies fire on attitude.
• The well balanced, confident candidate: Here is the real "meat" as we say in Greece. Imagine if someone enters the room and breathes enough confidence but not arrogance, he does not think that the interview is about himself and offers explanation, logical reasoning and answers based on facts about everything you throw at him using his CV and confident oral skills to take you by storm. Even if there are other people more qualified or experienced than him, I would give him a slight advantage. The interview is not about you or the interviewer. It is about the company and an exchange of values.

4. Research your target and blow their mind.

Step in the recruiters boots for a second. There is a fancy entry level job, or maybe a senior management role somewhere. There are 1000 applicants including you. The recruiter has to go through them, cut them to 100 tomorrow, then to the last 10 or 5 and then pick just 1 for one position. That is a 0.0001 chance for you to get the position. More like zero though with a generic CV or resume. Not only the applicants are many, but a lot of people will have better experience or grades than you. Here is where you can research properly and increase your chances exponentially. It might not land you the job, but believe me it WILL pay off dividends.

Say I am applying for that position in the company "I like turtles". I have been an avid turtle fan for years and this amazing position is what i wanted in life. To support, breed, love turtles. But so do another 999 people.

I immediately go in Google and type "I like turtles". The company website shows up. I look at that section that is called "About Us", or "Company Values". This is the key right here. You analyze what they say and keep all those "buzz words", like "creative, technically minded, gifted, experienced, humanitarian". Then  you incorporate them in your CV/resume and cover letter. It is a form of NLP that will immediately get them to notice you and maybe review your qualifications again. To make them stop in their tracks and believe that this job was meant for you. A recruiter will hardly look at an application for more than half a minute. They will look at yours.

5. The interview is not your enemy, it is your greatest ally.

Remember what we said about attitude and about what is the interview. It is about the company and how you can show them that you have everything they ask for. They are not in power of the interview, don't be mistaken. You can shift the balance of power with a simple question. "Why should I work for I like turtles? What do you provide that will make me select your company?".

Something along these lines. It is a fantastic type of question that puts the interviewer in the back foot trying to explain himself. You can pick up more buzz words here and use them later. Do not leave holes in your CV they will show up here. Be prepared and if you can, have facts and numbers. They love facts and numbers. It shows you are prepared and that you can back up your outrageous claims.

6. You have more experience than you think.

For the last part it is another thing that has picked my curiosity. Everyone asks for experience, but how can you get that experience if nobody will hire you in the first place. This is where you need to look in your past life. They ask for leadership and management but you were unemployed for 2 years? Maybe you ran that dog shelter or the local school band. Maybe you managed a football team or juggled between many hobbies while assisting the community and volunteered to do things others didn't.

On the same page is the next tip. When you are inexperienced in the required work-field it can actually be an advantage. You start of as a clean slate and you can be moulded into the company's values much easier. Once I started boxing at the same time with a guy that had training for 2 years prior to me. After another year I was in a higher level than him. I asked the coach why. And he replied:

"Because you started with nothing while he had been coached by someone else before that taught him wrong. It takes time to fix this. But you where a clean slate, pristine and it is much easier to teach someone like that".

So look in your past and try to come up with key achievements that match the job requests. Be prepared and use the buzz words and believe me with the right mindset you will ooze confidence and positivity and people will notice that.

Repeat after me: I can do everything!

5 Ways to Become A Better Writer - by Candice Larson

 Since i started blogging i always wanted to either interview other people or share their thoughts along with mine. It turns out i am luckier with women rather than men as most of my posts/interviews are with women! And that said, today i have another guest poster! Candice Larson decided to contact me as she does not have her own blog but she wanted to contribute and let her voice heard for people like you and me. Maybe you have hit a writer's block or a motivational dead end and she is here with 5 tips to keep you going. Because blogging is love, blogging is life! She also asked me to share her passion with the Australian Journalist Lisa Wilkinson. You can read more about here in her wikipedia page or simply visit her Twitter account!

5 Suggested Activities to Become A Better Writer

As a writer, it's only natural to get stuck every once in a while. You're likely to start feeling like you're just not cut out for the job, and you gradually back away until you realize that you're not even taking the time to write anymore. Well, how do you expect to get better at what you do that way? Before you start chucking out all your hard work, pause and decide if you still want to pursue writing. Once you've realized that yes, you do, then it's time to take the steps to becoming a better writer:

Keep writing.

Don't just quit writing, regardless of how bad you think your work is. Don't throw out the fruits of your labor, either. I'm not saying that you should hold on to what you believe is junk – you just need to think of all that as stepping stones to you as a better writer. Remember that sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better – and don't forget, it will get better eventually, as long as you keep practicing.

Proofread everything.

They say that you're a writer if you proofread every message you send or post – and the ones you receive or read as well. I don't know about you, but this is certainly true for me. I can hardly keep myself from correcting people whenever they make grammar mistakes. Instead of commenting on people's posts, you can simply take note of the errors that other people make. Find something to practice your editing skills on a blog piece of someone you know. Blog is a trending activity online and it’s easier if you start on that.

Start a journal for those private thoughts.

Keeping a journal is a great way to practice your writing skills. Jot down those innermost thoughts, describe your day, let out those pent-up feelings – use your journal to write whatever you want. Anything goes; it's still writing practice, after all.

Make reading a habit.

This may sound cliche but before becoming a writer, one starts to be a reader - not just a reader but a voracious one. I started reading a lot when I reached my 5th grade. I think that was when I had the chance to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Right then and there, I realized that I love reading and I want to tell my story too. You see, reading makes one rich in terms of imagination, style, and vocabulary. As I constantly write, I have somehow develop my own style of writing to convey my message. Try reading now and you will be amazed how it can change your writing style.

Find time to relax and enjoy.

Writing is not about writing every minute or so, it requires a time to relax. It helps to freshen up your mind. If I feel like I don’t have anything helpful on my mind, I leave whatever I am writing and find something else that makes me relax and enjoy. Our mind needs to relax in able to regain more creative juices. I value relaxation so much for my writing activities, and fortunately, I think I am being more productive after doing something else. One of my favorite activities outside writing is watching news, sports, and entertainment. One of my favorite journalists is the Australian presenter Lisa Wilkinson, who is hosting the show Today. I just love how she presents the news or whatever is on her plate, and that I called an enjoyment outside writing.

So, you want to become a better writer, I suggest that you take time to these suggestions.

About the author:

Candice Larson is an occasional writer for The Fordham Company and other blogs, and juggles her time between working and attending graduate school. She likes to read, travel and write. Candice is also a coffee lover.

A state of decay

Stand up and take notice for a little bit. Look yourself in the mirror. Repeat after me:

"What are my goals in life? What is it that binds and defines me? Where do i see myself in 5-10 years and what is my purpose?"

Can you answer any of these questions? Most likely not. I was lucky to answer most of those questions early in my life however some where changing as life is a dynamic event. And here another question arises:

"Are we even remotely free?"

Countless of people around the globe would argue that we are not. What is democracy? What is freedom after all? To grow up, pay your taxes, go to school, work, work some more, retire and die? How democratic is it for people to state their opinions and let others decide what is better for you even if you are against that decision? And then they double cross you or they serve their own political agenda?

It is easy to get carried away and many of those things are most likely true. From the moment a human is conceived the sperm that fertilizes the egg effectively leads to the death of the others. Does that make us accomplishes to murder before we are even borne? We get thrown into this new world, this new age of technology and madness, where every human questions (or not) their own existance and battles for his own place in society while facing a monumental, daunting task for survival and reproduction.

In the end many of us have limitless abilities. But when you are raised poor, you self-suggest to yourself that you are destined to grow and die poor. Our subconsious is the most powerful tool we have or the most destructive one. It can lead men and women to madness, pain and eternal mental suffering. When you are faced with situations like these, such as domestic violence, poverty, war and famine it is too easy to get carried away and simply go with the flow, because this "feels normal".

Humans in such perilous situations have usually a crossroad. The first one is to stay in that endless long road like those american routes that you see in the movies that go as far as the eye can see. You live your normal life, satisfied or not with what you have, living in the routine enforced to you by your society, your family and your peers. And most of the times that life can be miserable. There are exceptions, some people love to work with their dad or the family business or they don't really have any dreams. Or maybe they do but when it is time to have a serious talk with yourself in order to achieve it they go like "nahhh i will do it another time" or "there is no way i can do it".

The other road is the one that leads somewhere. It has a start, a journey and then sometime you arrive in the fountain, the city, the clouds, have your pick. It is the one that you decide that you had enough and that you will be a man of action. That you are not the failure that your father or mother thinks you to be. That you can produce good and make a difference. Sometimes it means that you have to make sacrifices along the way but if it is your dream nobody should ever stand in your way. It is yours for a reason and you should pursue it with a burning desire. But here also lays a trap. Never forget your morals and ethics. Never cause harm to your fellow peers. Do more good than you are expected to do and more things and one day someone will recognize your good work and pay you back handsomely. The point is, because you were borne poor, you don't have to be poor for the rest of your life. Because your dad hit you and your mother you don't have to be a rapist, a murderer or a horrible father. Be the change. Do not fear them. Do not loathe them or hate them. Feel sorry for them instead.

Be a real man for a change not an asshole.

A few days ago my own father told us that he had raised up "two failures". I don't know if he meant that. I don't care if he meant that. All i know is that i have eluded the trap of taking it seriously and taking even a chunk out of my battle armor. It is so easy though. For example when you grow up as a youngling and you see your dad swearing at your mom or sister or others and physically abusing people it is engraved into your brain and DNA to behave like that. It feels "normal".

So instead of feeling that you have inherited the wrong, recessive genes embrace your DNA and your true self and let it shine. Last year i rebelled and took my life in my own hands even at the age of 26. I spread my wings. And this year i am going to take off and soar like an eagle as slowly everything clicks into gear. I will not tell you what my life plans are as i take it one step at a time.

In the meantime let me rott and die from the heatwave that amongst other things is hitting Greece like a sledgehammer right now while you enjoy your amazing rain and cold in Sweden and Finland <3

Until next time, goonight Sweden!