tldr: Try things out and find out what you’re passionate about. Don’t cling to things you’ve started too much just because you think you need to finish them in some sense. Don’t think you’re stupid or others are better than you, generally try hard not to compare yourself to others.

I am pretty happy with where I am right now and with who I have become, but I think I should have cared less about what other people think of me and be more of myself as a teenager and as a young adult. I could have followed my interests more passionately and be less limited by what I thought other people saw in me, including especially my parents.

I started a degree in physics and I remember that it took only a year or so until I first started having this feeling that I don’t belong there. That the other students are smarter and better suited, better prepared for the job. There was just no passion about the project of studying physics. I think I enrolled for it because my best friend did and because I was good at it at school and I did not have many other ideas. And then I just kept plowing through to prove to myself and others that I can earn the degree.

I must add that I had no idea how professional scientists (physiscists, computer scientists or mathematicians) worked and partially that this job even existed. I was never passionate about physics at school, it was just not that hard to understand at school.

Before enrolling for my degree in physics, I was also thinking about studying computer science briefly during my last year or so at school. But for some reason, I think, I looked down upon the subject, confounding it with mere programming, and might have thought that physics is in some sense superior. I wonder what would have happened had I chosen to go for CS instead. It is quite ironic that I looked down upon another subject while feeling myself absolutely insufficient for studying physics. There’s another piece of advice here: Try hard not to compare yourself to others.

In the end, it all turned out well, I got a decent degree and was able to do a PhD. I felt pretty proud of the fact that I would be able to earn the first PhD in my family’s history (at least for the three generations I knew of). But along the way I had unlearned to look inside me and follow my inner compass.

One year into my PhD, I remember feeling the same feelings again, that had already plagued me early on in my undergraduate life. But again, I did not act on those feelings and just ignored them. Partially, I guess, for a fear of become an unsuccessful, failed existence. This feeling is probably fueled by the way my mother had told me how to live my life. While this sort of attitude certainly has advantages (don’t give up too easily) it also has a certain unhealthy aspect to it in that it does not allow you to listen to your feelings.

In hindsight, it would have done no harm to my life’s trajectory had I quit my PhD and done something else. But I did probably not have a really good idea, partially because studying physics had left so little time for exploring other things.

It is remarkable to me how certain decisions in life feel so important in hindsight. Like choosing a spouse or deciding which degree(s) to pursue. It is also interesting how I have this feeling, looking back, that I should have taken different decisions with respect to what to study (fortunately not with respect to my spouse). I wonder if the magnitude of that feeling is only a function of the person who’s having them, regardless of the decisions the person has taken. Is the wish to have pursued other topics a general personality trait? Or have I really taken suboptimal decisions? I guess I will never know. But I will hopefully continue to be able to encourage my sons to follow their passions and be who they are.

I think everybody who puts himself out there in some form or another. All online creators keep inspiring me.

Austin Kleon is one of the most prolific ones that I have currently in mind and his way of sharing so much of what he’s doing with the world is very inspiring to me. His relentless way of documenting, collecting, mixing and sharing is just great.

Then there are a bunch of Youtubers whom I really look up to because I would probably like to be one myself. There’s, for example, Richard Borcherds, Tibees, Nathaniel Drew, Math-life balance, Valerie Lin, Matt D’Avella and 3blue1brown, to name just a few of the channels I currently enjoy most.

Somehow, to me, the fact that people are brave enough to put effort into a bigger blog post or a decently written Youtube video is somehow inspiring. I would like to look those people in the eyes thank them for doing this if I ever met them in person. The fact that they share their thoughts, their personality, the fact that they are open about their thoughts and passions and accept that some people will not like it is great and brave and, for me at least, very hard to beleive.

And then there are also a bunch of mathematicians I look up to. Mostly famous ones though, because otherwise I wouldn’t know them because I’m not a mathematician myself. But the fact that they went deep into a topic and managed to wrap their head around very abstract topics, for which it takes months or years to understand them, is very inspiring to me as well.

I wish I knew how to

• found a company (I know that already)
• find out what kind of company I should found
• find out what it is that I know how to do but other people don’t know how to do
• make money out of being curious and reading and learning things (much like Austin Kleon does but on somewhat different topics)

That’s an easy one. I quit my job as a software developer 3 months ago. And I don’t yet have a plan for my next job. That was certainly not comfortable.

It was a great job (C++ database developer) at a great company (SAP) with a great team. But I had somehow gotten unmotivated about it. I want to find a job that will pose new challenges and hopefully provides better motivation in terms of the product and technology I’ll working on.

To be fair: I still have 2 months of paid leave from my current job in February and March during which I will be applying for new jobs. Plus: German unemployment insurance will pay me 60% of my previous salary for a year in case everything fails.