Sometimes I wonder how different my life would look today if, a little over a year ago, I hadn’t decided to turn everything upside down and move to Finland.
Not just because of the obvious things. A different city, a different language, a different apartment, new people. It is much more about those little situations in which I suddenly realize: This would never have happened in my old life. I wouldn’t have been in this place. I might never have met these people. I probably would never have started this sport. Some encounters would never have happened, some conversations would never have taken place, and some stories would never even have had the chance to begin.
Sometimes it feels as if there are two versions of my life.
There is the Janina from Germany, with her steady job, her structured everyday life, and a pretty clear idea of what her life was supposed to look like one day. A lot of it was safe and sensible. And a lot of it was good. But if I am honest with myself today, part of that life was also made up of compromises.
I actually knew from a very young age what I wanted to do. I still remember exactly how I told my mother that I wanted to make music. Her response was one that probably many people know: “You can’t make any money doing that. Learn something sensible first. After that, you can still do whatever you want.”
So that is exactly what I did.
I became a childcare assistant. And I don’t want to make that sound less important than it was. I liked my job, I was good at it, and for a long time, the idea of eventually becoming an early childhood educator was simply part of how I pictured my future. “Janina, the childcare assistant” was a version of me that worked for many years.
But some part of me probably knew all along that there was something else. That I hadn’t stopped wanting to make music just because I had learned another profession. I hadn’t lost that original desire. I had simply learned to put it behind something that seemed safer and more sensible.
With martial arts, it was similar in a completely different way. I already wanted to start BJJ back then, but in Bremerhaven, where I lived at the time, I didn’t have the right opportunity to do so. So I started Kung Fu. And that wasn’t a bad decision either. Quite the opposite. I enjoyed it, gained experience, and maybe that was exactly my first step into a world that is now a pretty big part of my life. Without Kung Fu, I might not have started martial arts at all until much later.
Still, looking back, there is an interesting thought: Even then, I had originally wanted something else and eventually chose the option that was available.
Maybe that is one of the biggest differences between these two versions of me. Not just where I live. But how often I used to be willing to compromise when what I actually wanted seemed too uncertain, too far away, or simply out of reach at the time.
And then there is the Janina in Finland. The one who eventually took a different direction and started asking herself more often: What do I actually want?
And perhaps even more importantly: Why should I settle for less just because what I really want is harder to achieve?
I have even started wondering whether this idea that we simply have to make compromises in life is really always true. Or whether that, too, is one of those beliefs we pick up somewhere along the way without ever really questioning it. Be sensible. Be realistic. Don’t expect too much. Take what is safe. Be happy with what you have.
Maybe it sounds arrogant or even a little megalomaniac, but I don’t want to make that my guiding principle in life anymore.
That doesn’t mean I believe everything should simply fall into my lap or that the world owes me exactly the life I want. Quite the opposite. Some of the things I have today are things I first had to make possible for myself. I had to make decisions, take risks, leave things behind, and put myself in situations without knowing beforehand how they would turn out.
But I notice that today I am much less willing to tell myself in advance: “I probably won’t get what I actually want anyway. So I’ll just take something else.”
Maybe that is exactly the difference.
The Janina in Finland is trying to find out what happens when she doesn’t say “Then I’ll just do something else” quite so quickly anymore.
When she doesn’t automatically take the easier path just because it is available. When she allows herself to have certain ideas about where and how she wants to live. When she gives a dream space, even when no one can guarantee that it will work out. When she listens to what feels right, even when the more sensible path is sometimes right there beside it.
And that is exactly what has been on my mind more and more lately: How much of what happens to us is actually coincidence? How much of it is fate? And how much of it did we make possible ourselves simply by deciding at some point to take a certain path?
Of course, you can look at it very rationally. If you go to a new place, you meet new people. If you start a new hobby, you become part of a new community. If you leave your old life behind, you automatically create space for things that had no place in it before. Maybe there is no bigger plan behind any of it at all.
And yet there are those moments when it feels different.
When certain people keep crossing your path. When a seemingly insignificant moment suddenly turns into a story. When a sentence, a song, a look, or sometimes even just a small sign triggers more thoughts than it probably should. When things fit together in a way that eventually makes you wonder: Is all of this really just coincidence?
I don’t know.
Maybe I will only know someday when I look back.
Maybe that is sometimes the difficult thing about life: We don’t get a preview. No one tells us whether we are on the right path, whether a decision will become important later, or whether something that feels like a setback today might eventually turn out to have a completely different meaning.
I have been thinking about that a lot lately. Because even though I still feel that choosing this life was the right decision, the path feels more difficult in some places right now. Things that gave me security or opened up new possibilities over the past few months are suddenly no longer guaranteed. Some of them depend on circumstances that I cannot fully control. And sometimes I catch myself wondering whether life is closing doors in my face again that previously seemed to open almost by themselves.
Maybe this is the point where my rational mind and the part of me that likes to believe in signs, fate, and the idea that some things happen for a reason start arguing with each other.
My rational mind says: Of course encounters don’t happen out of nowhere. I have to go somewhere in order to meet someone there. I have to decide to do something for something new to come from it. I have to take a step myself before another one can even become possible.
The other part of me still wonders: Why there? Why now? Why these people? And why are there sometimes these strange moments when different things suddenly fit together in such a way that it becomes difficult to dismiss them as meaningless coincidences?
Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.
Maybe fate doesn’t mean that there is a finished plan written for us somewhere and all we have to do is follow it. Maybe our own decisions are what create the possibilities from which something can later develop. We open doors by moving forward. But we cannot determine what is waiting for us behind them.
And maybe that is exactly the part I am struggling with a little right now.
Because as much as I believe that the path itself matters, I also notice that I long for something that feels, at least for a moment, like arriving.
I have written before that the journey is the destination. And I still believe that, just as I did back then. To me, that sentence has never meant wandering through life without direction or never wanting to arrive anywhere. A journey can have stages. Wishes, places, and dreams that you want to reach and that you hope will someday become reality.
Maybe we need exactly those little milestones. A place where we want to stay. A dream that suddenly becomes a little more real. A situation that finally starts moving forward. A moment when we no longer have to think only about what could be, but can experience what actually is.
And even then, the journey wouldn’t be over.
Maybe it would simply change.
An “I” can eventually become a “we.” A dream can become a new everyday life. Reaching one goal usually leads to the next. Arriving doesn’t have to mean standing still.
Maybe sometimes it simply means knowing for a moment: Up to this point, the path was right.
And then continuing.
Except continuing is not always as easy as it sounds.
Because eventually you reach points where your own decision alone is no longer enough. You can know what you want and still not know what will happen next. You can feel as though you have understood a situation for a long time and then question it completely again the next moment.
Maybe that is where this strange battle between intuition and reason begins.
There are moments when your own intuition becomes surprisingly loud. A sentence appears and something inside you immediately reacts to it. A song suddenly takes on a different meaning. A look feels different. Individual situations that might not prove anything on their own suddenly come together to form a picture that feels completely right.
And for a moment you think: Of course. How could it be any other way?
Until your mind steps in.
What if I am wrong? What if I take something personally that has absolutely nothing to do with me? What if I see something in small signs because I want to see it? What if the overall picture only looks so perfect because I filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle myself?
Maybe uncertainty begins exactly there: not necessarily because your own feelings are weak, but because we cannot know another person’s thoughts. As long as something remains unspoken, there will always be this space for doubt between two people.
And maybe that is even true for both sides.
Maybe there is someone else standing there asking themselves exactly the same thing. Maybe there are fears of their own, doubts of their own, and the same concern about having misunderstood something. Maybe each person is waiting for a clearer sign from the other.
Or maybe it is completely different.
Maybe that is why it can sometimes be so tempting to wish for a clear answer. Something that says: Yes, trust your feelings. Or: No, move on.
But there is no such guarantee.
And in a few weeks, I will return to a place I know very well. But this time, just thinking about it feels different.
In the past, my role there was completely clear. I was on one side, other people were on the other. Today, I am not even sure which side I would put myself on anymore.
Maybe that is exactly what occupies my mind so much. Because for a moment, things could come together there that I have always been able to keep separate until now. Past and present. The familiar and the new. An earlier version of my life and the life that has grown out of it since then.
I don’t know how that evening will feel. Maybe completely normal. Maybe afterward I will laugh at myself and realize that I thought far too much about it.
But maybe there will also be one of those little moments that are almost impossible to explain from the outside and still trigger something on the inside.
I don’t know.
And maybe that is exactly what is exciting about it right now: I don’t have to know today.
That doesn’t necessarily make life easier. To be honest, it actually makes some things more complicated. Because when you know what you want, you notice even more clearly when reality doesn’t quite match it yet.
And maybe that is the price of making fewer compromises: Sometimes you have to wait longer for something. Fight harder for it. Endure uncertainty. And accept that the easier path can be right in front of you while you still keep trying to find another one.
But maybe by now I would rather live with this uncertainty for a while than someday realize again that I have arrived somewhere, just not where I actually wanted to arrive: within myself and in the life that is truly meant for me.
