It is only the second month since I came back to France, but it feels like I have been living here forever.
I tried to keep a strict schedule by keeping a few working hours everyday on some major topics in life.
It worked for some days, but for some others, it didn’t.
There were days, I would get up early in the morning, taking a shower and start working with enthusiasm. By the end of the day, I would finish a lot of subjects and felt fulfilled.
However, there were some days, I couldn’t even get out of bed.
Luckily by keeping a short list of my daily activities helped me to understand this pattern.
Usually, right after a day of compact schedule, the next day, I would feel drained and wanted to stay in bed all day.
The difference was, unlike in the past, I did not give up believing in the journey, instead I decided to slow things down when it felt hard and then kept going, one step at a time.
If September was about re-familiarising myself with France and setting up the logistics required living here, October was about filling that structure by pouring efforts in everyday.
Job:
A job has been the biggest headache of all time.
Nevertheless, there is an interesting shift in perspective lately about how I understand work.
What exactly is work? Has it to be a person sitting in front of an office desk and producing powerpoint? Because that is how I learned to be the work ..
Maybe, the first thing I need to differentiate is the differences between a job and the work. A job can be something purposeless and only to secure income for the expenses in life. Whereas work is something I take seriously and invest emotionally.
However, they can both occupy large chunk of our time in life, especially a job.
A job, usually takes a person to participate five days a week from 9am to 6pm everyday. Sometimes, people need to work overtime until 8 to 10pm, such as I did.
By doing this, income is guaranteed. The larger questions in a person’s life can be answered through an organisation and a company who hired the person, such as health insurance and pension.
A work can also be a job if we are lucky. If it is not, then a condition needs to be created for the work to exist at the first place, then to sustain it for the long term.
If a job is to take a part from someone else’s cake, then the work is to learn to bake your own.
Housing:
If you knew me, you would think that my housing situation is terrible right now since I do not have a fixed address.
I have been hopping from one Airbnb to another and I am planning to continue to do so, at least for a while.
In January this year, I reduced all of my belongings into two suitcases and went back to Urumqi. This meant getting rid of 95% of what I owned. I took 3% with me and left 2% at my friend’s and at my uncle’s places before leaving.
In any case, it was a detrimental experience to throw away things I loved dearly and collected with care.
As a lesson, I learned to be very cautious of owning things because now I need to think about whether I can keep them or not.
On the other hand, this new philosophy made my Airbnb hopping possible. Since I only have one and half suitcase of belongs now, so I can go anywhere at anytime.
When a door closes, a window will open and wave at you!
Social Circle:
This was also something I had to reduce its size. They say you are the average of the five closest people around you and for me five people is more than enough.
Other Things:
Other than those major topics, I added some other things to do to make my life better, such as starting a French course, preparing to get a driver’s licence in France and taking care of my health by eating healthy and visiting specialised doctors.
I have to say these subjects added a lot of positivities into my life, and made me see a future that is easy and high quality.
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In October, a lot of my efforts went into maintaining the energy for the plans and tasks of each day. Meanwhile, I’ve been increasingly focusing on my overall well-being, especially mentally preparing myself to open a large chapter in life.
It still feels scary, but there is no way of running away anymore. It is happening.
October 2026
Creil