Anniversaries are an important part of life. They remind us of important events, giving an opportunity to celebrate and to make conclusions.
10 years wedding anniversary
September usually is the month of change for me. Ten years ago, we said “Yes” to each other with my wife in an East Hungarian town I grew up, in Tiszafoldvar. After living together for 6 years, in January 2011 I decided, this is The Year to get married! At that time, we lived in the UK, and we organized our wedding and wedding party in Hungary all remotely. What a challenge but with a strong desire, everything is possible!
I remember how excited I called the priest, booked the wedding party location, booked the wedding ceremony at the council and church. It is a kind of project, people usually do only once and I felt grown-up, maybe the first time in my life. One of the disadvantages was the remote setup that I was the one who went with my fiance to select her wedding dress, which is usually done with girlfriends, sisters. We arrived at the wedding location only a week before the Big Day and made the final touches there. Our day went well until the point, the head waiters got drunk before the party and we needed to call out few extra waiters to help. Thinking back on this, this was a funny story to remember. Lessons learned here, you should not try to save money on not having a professional wedding organizer – we tried, and it was stressful for dealing with such issues at our own wedding. I must stop here for a moment and promote my sister-in-law`s services, who helped us at our wedding and since became a professional wedding organizer. If you are having a wedding in Hungary, I can recommend her services.
The evening was nice and memorable, with lots of dance and fun. At the end of the wedding party, my mother felt it is time to have a huge argument with my wife. This argument itself somehow managed to shadow the wedding day for many years. Until now, we have not watched our wedding videos! The root cause was that my mother`s firstborn son was taken away by a “girl from the city” (maybe the situation is known by you too). Probably my mother would have never been satisfied with any woman next to me. In the first 6 years with my girlfriend, I tried avoiding any deep conversation with my mother about her feelings towards my fiancé. I was between two women, did not know what to do. I often have problems confronting people, even with my own parents. A tension was raising for years…I ignored the fact, there is a problem, even my wife told me days before the wedding, let`s have a meaningful conversation with my parents, especially with my mum. I have rather chosen the easier way, to skip this, saying, everything will be fine. The “bomb” blasted on our wedding… I feel responsible and needed years until we could think positively about our wedding. Reframing what happened there, helped a lot also focusing on the good memories instead of one negative.
Even the wedding itself was not perfect, we had an amazing 10 years together. We travelled a lot, in 27 countries so far, had our first dog, first own house, first cars, became digital nomads and collected so many wonderful memories together. We grew up together, started our self-development journey together in 2017-2018.I am now in a process of collecting our couple-selfies from the last 10 years and make a photo book from these pictures, or even a nice video. I am very grateful for my Wife, she had a great role in forming me into the person I am today. She always motivated me, supported me when needed just an extra kick on the side, “you can do it!”. I am a man who acknowledges, behind every successful man there is a strong, inspiring woman!
5 years in freelancing
Reaching here to my second milestone this month. Five years ago, I left my permanent job in the UK. I lost my motivation and passion at my work; I did not get appreciation from my bosses, rather more workload and stress. My bosses raised the bar every year, which I reached but they did not honour that. I often drove to work while I was crying. I felt daily pressure on my chest because of the amount of stress I had under high responsibility. I knew this job will sooner or later kill me but did not know what to do. On a level of an IT engineer, I was in a top position. I had a freelancer colleague, David, who influenced me a lot by sharing his lifestyle he could achieve by being a contractor. He motivated me a lot to make a brave step, quit my job. My colleagues Piara and Idrees also motivated a lot that I am a perfect freelancer material – what I slowly started to believe! I started having interviews and soon my first client in Scotland gave me a chance; I can prove how good I am in what I am doing, as a freelancer. Since this first banking client in Glasgow, I have worked for three international banks. I gained a huge self-confidence at work and I love not needing to complete annual personal objectives and based on that getting a grade, then a pay rise of 0.5% or 1%… Now I transfer salary to myself as much as my company can afford and as often as I want. How great is that! I do not have to wait for the manager`s approval if I want to take a new technical course. I have the freedom to decide how much I work, when and how many days I have off work.
I would like to encourage you to take the brave step, quit your permanent job if you feel you are no longer happy. If you have a freelancing plan, start working on it tomorrow! For me, it was the best decision I ever made!
3 years since I am Vegan
My third milestone this month was that I am on a plant-based diet for 3 years. How this all started? Maybe with Tony Robbins` UPW in London, where they asked us to participate in a 14-days challenge, during only eating fruits&veg. That was a challenge I remember! First time without stuffing my face with eggs, cheese, steak and bacon… Soon after the 14 days, we returned to our normal diet. 3 months later, my wife found a nutritionist, who promotes a plant-based diet that may cure many illnesses. She also started watching videos about how the end products land on the shelves of grocery shops. She started cooking plant-based from one day to another. Whether it’s seeing footage of animals suffering in films like Earthlings or discovering farming’s damaging environmental effects in Cowspiracy, a single film can change the way people choose to live their lives. Fork over knives documentary movie takes a closer look at the health benefits of cutting meat and dairy for our diets. This site has a collection of movies on this topic if you are interested. Personally, I did not watch the video footages taken in slaughterhouses, I only noticed my wife looking broken and deeply saddening. She cried a lot about how humans can be so cruel?! She just described some of the footage she watches and the next day I also stopped eating animal-based products! To be honest, deep inside me I often had the thought where that piece of meat is coming which is on my plate. The emotional attachment to the food was greater and I managed to justify I am doing the right thing when said to myself what everybody says, “animals are for us to eat them”. Bullsh*t! On Earth, every creature must have the same right to live. How come we are better than an animal 3x larger than us and who does not harm even a fly – like a cow? I grew up in the countryside, I remember when I had to hold the duck`s legs while my mother cut the duck`s head and I could not watch it! I could not bear the cry of the pig when the family got together once a year to kill this animal; but I ate from the freshly cooked meat and fried blood with onion, which is a traditional dish in Hungary. I think many people who take off a pack of ham from the shelf of a grocery store, do not think about that is from an animal that is -based on recent research in the last ten years – could be one of our closest ancestors and that we share a remarkably similar DNA. Enough to look into the eyes of a pig! I feel I must write a post only about why I turned into plant-eater only, for now, the fact is in the last 3 years I saved about 5 million liter water, 20.000 grain, 3100 sqm forest, 10.200 kg of CO2, 1130 animal`s life (source: https://thevegancalculator.com/)! Most people live a selfish life not thinking of the future, only focusing on the satisfaction they feel after eating a big juicy steak. I have now 3 nieces and a nephew and their future and their life contributing a lot to my dedication; I will never eat any food coming from animals! I want for them clear air and drinking water available and I believe in, even one person`s life can make a positive impact on the environment.
2 years since home-owner and debt free
This is the result of moving out from the UK to a cheaper country, where we could afford to buy a house and land by cash. Also, the result of being a freelancer and our income 4x more now than at the time when we were in permanent employment. We learned to live and work smart for ourselves rather than work hard and for somebody else. If you have not read yet, the book I recommend to get out of the “rat race” is Robert Kiyosaky`s Rich Dad Poor dad.
After working some months on our house refurbishment project, we are now ready to start our road trip, this time to North-East Europe, up to the Baltic countries! I will come soon with my first blog post from Prague, that is one of our favourite European city with one of the best Vegan restaurants.
