It was a freezing day in January, the holidays ended a week ago and it was time to be my student self again. Except, this time it was also time to step into a real office and start my internship.
It did sound scary back then, few days after I got accepted I started panicking about how am I going to work with zero experience, if they were going to fire me after they saw how clumsy I was and what on earth do you wear on your first day in the office. My friends couldn’t help me much since all of us were mostly in the same situation, in the same honeymoon phase of starting a big corporate job, as I call it now. It means romanticizing a world that the media often glorifies, so I went with what they said. They weren’t wrong, now I realize. I like how the corporate world moves fast, creates amazing things, and earns a lot of money, but what I did not realize is how small you are in a world so big. It takes a lot of time to burst out your potential, to show people you know how to do something maybe even better than others, it takes time for someone to see you. Until then you feel a little bit small compared to everything that is happening around you, however, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad feeling, but it might feel overwhelming at times.
Eventually, after I stopped being scared of going to work, I realized I liked what I was doing. Most importantly, I discovered that I love going to work. Even if the long to-do lists sometimes seemed overwhelming, I liked the feeling of being busy and checking off items from the list. Switching from my comfort environment, which was university, to a work environment shifted my perception of a lot of things. Besides the fact that I met new people and expanded my networks, I gained valuable experience that finally helped me understand in which direction I want to take my next career steps. The point is that I would have never experienced any of this if I hadn’t decided to step out of my comfort zone and make a change in my life. In the same way, I truly think that I wouldn’t be able to see and realize some things about life and myself if I hadn’t moved abroad in the first place, and the same way goes with taking such a big leap like a full-time internship. For everyone who likes living in their bubble and who is afraid to pop it, I just have to say that you will never know until you try. In reality, it is just pure fictional fear that is keeping you from making drastic decisions in your life, but then again if you decide to not proceed with them, you will stay in your bubble and nothing will ever change. When I think about that, I get scared – I get scared of things staying the same my whole life.