'/%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=small}
Being free
Some people go to university knowing exactly what they want to become. After my Abitur, I knew what I wanted to study and why – but not where it would lead. I chose a course leading to the German state examination to keep teaching open as an option. But I never really wanted to be a schoolteacher.
Still, I gave the profession a chance, in 1997. I moved to northern Norway, to the Lofoten Islands, for six months and tried my hand at teaching. Life on an island in the Norwegian Sea taught me a great deal: afterwards I still did not know what I wanted to become, but at least I knew who I wanted to be.
In hindsight – and in the thick of it: learning to swim was actually one of the easier exercises in the current of life.
Finding my first job after university was nowhere near as difficult as I had feared either. Starting at a bank … Being a banker: an interesting experience, although never quite my world.
And holding hands – for far too long, I did not dare. Now I do …