Why I decided to create a blog and my experience of creating it over a weekend.

Something hit me

During the past couple of years, while I was doing backend engineering for several companies, I moved away from my startup/entrepreneurship personality. This happened because of my migration to Germany and because, for visa and financial reasons, I needed to work a full-time job.

It was fun and nice at the start: working in an international environment, which was new for a boy coming from a small city in Iran; talking to people from different countries and cultures; and also experiencing a European work and life lifestyle.

It was fun until something hit me one day—the day I went to the AWS Summit in Berlin.

Why did I go at all? Well, to have some fun! I was bored with work, and since I was working in a bank (which I think is the most boring industry to work in… Probably there are worse jobs, but you get the point), I decided, “Okay, let’s go there and have some fun. It’s free anyway.”

But that day was like a slap in the face. Man, I saw all those startups and young and energetic people working their asses off for their startups and products. I went to listen to some talks on startups, met some founders, and on my way home, my thoughts were full of ideas.

What happened to me? As a student, I was always working on cool startup projects. I was everything: the designer guy, the product guy, the developer guy, the marketing and sales guy. That was very fun, but now I was just an engineer.

I have lost most of my creative skills during these years. I had to change something. I had bigger dreams when I decided to come to Germany to work.

Early days in Germany

As a 24-year-old coming to Germany, I had so much energy, feeling that I wanted to work 12 hours/day the moment I landed. I asked the company to give me the laptop so I could start to work ASAP! But they said it’s not ready and it would take a week. “Just relax for now.” It was really a shock to me! Then that enthusiasm slowly started to go down. Until I became one of them: someone who didn’t care about anything and just waited until 6 PM to go home, or thanked God that it was Friday and tomorrow was the weekend. I was really missing the days in Iran when we were doing hard shit, without even knowing what the future would be.

Iran in my 20s

I started to work at 18 or 19, without getting any money or anything, just wanting to learn and eager to grow. My grades at university were not great, but I was a guy who was working in the real world and, as one of the persons who graduated with the worst grades, I was the first one who got a job in Iran, then Germany. I remember from 19 to 24, we had also started a small company with my friend. We had a dream, working 20 hours a day, full of energy to do something, to be someone. That feeling of fulfillment, happiness, was something I felt I was missing these days.

New Start in Germany

So my story started with the idea that something hit me again and I wanted to go back to the good old days. And why did that happen? Because I got bored of comfort! I got dragged into the comfort zone. Life became easy, no stress, no challenge. I could outcompete anyone in the company with no extra effort, but I had no motivation. I started to go to the gym 24/7, I got a personal trainer certificate, I did some content creation in my free time. I did all this because I felt life was too slow and easy here, not like a 24/7 battle in Iran.

So here it is, my new blog. Writing this article with a little hope that I want to start a new life. Good thing that I (will) get my German passport soon and I have more freedom than before. I hope I can keep motivation and discipline and that I seek challenges, new stuff.