Change.

'Changes are hard. Changes are scary. Changes are a tedious administrative nightmare'. At the same time, changes are crucial for securing progress and our happiness as humans. At 31 I am in a position to say that as a person I am capable of embracing change and most of the time I am prompt to it. One thing that life has taught me is that we are always one decision away from a totally different life. There is no end to waiting for things to change, or waiting for time to change things; we need to change those things ourselves. We need to take action, decide!

Let's take a step back to decisions. They are probably an even harder thing to make, especially when it is a choice between where you should be and where you want to be. Psychological factors and emotional involvement could make decision making impossible for some of us. Reviewing my so far life-changing decisions, I come to the realisation that for every big step I have taken a major action was required and most importantly I was emotionally independent. For every choice I'd made that I wasn't 100% responsible, or was based on fear or the possibility of what-might-happen, the consequences weren't always the greatest. But decisions reflect our hopes for a better future, any decision we make causes a chain of events to happen.

I'd lived in 5 different countries and 2 continents during 5 different periods of my life. I have always considered moving to a new place a life-changing decision as it was always accompanied by discomforts, leaving behind beloved people and lots of memories, aiming for the something new that would change my life. And I was lucky enough that this worked for me up to this day. Socrates claimed, 'Το μυστικὀ της αλλαγής είναι να επικεντρώσεις όλη σου την ενέργεια όχι στην καταπολέμηση του παλιού, αλλά στο κτίσιμο του νέου᾽ or else 'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not to fighting the old, but on building the new', more or less the essence of survival.

Another thing that changes first, prior to the need of taking action is our priorities. Whether you are tired of limited living space, you are unsatisfied with your working environment, you feel like this is no place to be starting a family, or the FOMO on all family moments for too long now. As years are passing by, priorities change. While I know I am not done with London just yet, at the same time years have gone by and so much more had changed. I've never stopped being happy living in London. This place has brought me so much joy for most of my time here. I'd met wonderfull people with whom I connected in so many different levels. Leaving here will require an initial period of grieving before passing onto the swerve nostalgia phase.

At the same time, Carlos truly believes that the right moment for our new beginning is now! As the more spontaneous in the family, he really embraces this change and the idea of moving back home. He's never been more excited and can't wait for our new life to begin. He's dreaming of all the little details, our new home and family, our new adventures and all the things our future hopefully beholds. I on the other hand as the more reasonable one am having a hard time deciding under the pressure of the 4 month lockdown, the extreme fatigue and the elongated working hours I am recently swamped with. I find it impossible to accept the end of our life here and to be able to begin to build our something new at someplace else. I was generally never good at taking decisions under a lot of pressure.

So now I am split between trusting my gut or doing the spontaneous thing while making sure to maintain a flexible approach or a backup plan in case things turn out not to work as planned. I am so consumed by all the over-thinking during this past four months. At some point I need to get clear on the fact the time has come to make a proper decision one way or the other, that I am going to execute and make peace with whichever way we are going to go, as I can't take indefinitely that feeling of not resolving my life's s*** out. Although I feel the need to be careful not to make a permanent decision based on temporary emotion, I find it hard to separate emotion from logic.

I can't say I am highly satisfied or motivated with my current job, but I always considered quitting a job a greedy decision, especially in view of the current events and the upcoming global financial and job crisis. I could never imagine not being able to see our families or taking some time off, but currently safety comes first! I am willing to spend a summer in London if this is what it takes for us to remain safe throughout this time. We already have a lot to look forward to in the coming months, that we can't wait! On the contrary, we spend most of our lives working hard and doing what's right resulting sacrifising quality time and moments with loved ones. Do we really need to let work/money rule our lives?

The struggle is real. Have you guys ever been in a similar dilemma? I still haven't been able to take a decision. Making a big life change is pretty scary. But know what is even scarier? Regret!