Curiosity gets you places

Almost two years ago I did a 5-day-internship at a publishing house. It was ridicolously short but it lead to a job offer some months later for a position at this publishing house which I'm still holding to this day. Sometimes I still don't understand how I ended up here (especially as I had no prior experience in this line of work) and I wonder why I got the job. It's not like I'm really good at what I'm doing, I pretty much didn't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm not very smart or charismatic or charming either. What I am is I'm curious.

During the 5 days of my internship I wanted to read all the books, and learn all the stuff, and participate in all the projects. Life is full of oppurtunities and I want to waste none of them. There are so many chances and I want to take them all. What I learned is, that it doesn't matter so much what grades you have or how educated you are or how good you can talk on a telephone. If you show real interest in other people's projects and passions, they will want you on board. The best you can be is curious and interested and excited and passionate. If you have these qualities, then all else will follow.

Here are just a few things I am interested in: literature, journalism, astrophysics, music, art, physics, microbiology, archeology, movies, travel, photography, poltics, sociology, entertainment, coding, spirituality and so much more. I am pretty much interested in everything. You want to go see the exhibition on dinosaurs? I'm in. You want to visit the Japan festival? I'm in. You want to attend one meeting of every political party at your university? I'm in. Because almost always it turns out to be interesting, if not even extremely fascinating.

The biggest dilemma for me is that I'm not immortal and that I can't learn all the things I want to learn and can't do all the things I want to do and can't be all the things I want to be. I'm still hoping that by the time I'm 70, medicine will be advanced enough that we'll all live for at least 300 years.

Once I was the typical too-cool-to-care teenager and I'm still bummed out about all the exciting vacations with my parents which I didn't enjoy because I was too busy being grumpy. But after graduation I thankfully stopped being so close-minded and I stopped caring about being cool (and anyway, being passionate about stuff is way cooler than not giving a damn!) and I started being interested in everything. Since then life has become a lot more fun. And yes, curiosity got me places.