I’ve been thinking about life lately.

Dangerous, I know.

Not in a particularly dramatic way, and nothing has happened that’s suddenly made me question the meaning of existence. I’ve just been thinking about where we imagine our lives will be at certain ages, and then where they actually end up.

Because surely I’m not the only person who, when I was younger, had some vague idea that at some point everything would sort of… fall into place?

I don’t even know what I thought that would look like. I don’t think I had a detailed five-year plan with a house, career and relationship pencilled in by specific dates. I’ve never really been that person. But I definitely thought there would come a point when I’d feel like I’d arrived somewhere. That I’d find the work I was meant to be doing, the place I was meant to be living, the people I was meant to have around me, and life would somehow start making a little more sense.

Has that happened for everyone else?

Because I’d really like to know.

Are you all secretly walking around thinking, Yes. This is exactly the life I imagined for myself. Everything has gone according to plan.

Is that happening???

Because if it is, congratulations. Genuinely.

I just don’t think that’s how life works for most of us.

Things happen that we don’t plan for. People change. We change. Something we were absolutely certain about five years ago suddenly doesn’t make sense anymore. Sometimes you make a decision because it’s what you want, sometimes because it’s what you need to do at the time, and sometimes because everyone around you seems convinced it’s the sensible thing to do and you think, Well… I suppose they know what they’re talking about.

Spoiler: they may not.

One thing I do know now is that I’ve become much clearer about what I want, but perhaps even clearer about what I don’t want.

And weirdly, I think that’s progress.

I’ve spent most of my adult life working for other people. That’s just what you do, right? You study, you find a job, you work, you pay your bills, you hopefully move upwards, you find another job, you work some more, and somewhere in between all of that you’re supposed to build the rest of your life.

I’ve had good experiences. I’ve met wonderful people. I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve worked in places and on things that younger me probably would have found very exciting.

But have I ever had that movie moment where I walk into work and think, Yes. THIS is it. I’ve found my place. I’ve found my people. This is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life.

No.

There. I said it.

And surely I cannot be the only one?

Sometimes I wonder how many of us actually love what we do and how many of us are just very good at doing what we need to do.

Because those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Maybe that’s one of the strange things about getting older. You become less impressed by the things you once thought you were supposed to want. At least I have.

I’m increasingly interested in freedom. In having my own space. In owning my time. In being able to decide what I work on, where I work from and who gets access to my energy.

Would working entirely for myself necessarily make me richer?

Perhaps not.

Would it make me happier?

Now that interests me more than it used to.

The same thing has happened with people. My circle has become smaller over the years, and for once I don’t think that’s something I need to fix. I used to think more people meant more life. More friendships, more plans, more conversations, more everything.

Now?

I want peace.

I love you, but please leave the drama at reception.

Unless it’s my drama.

I’ve spent enough years being invited into everybody else’s crises. I think it’s only fair that I finally get to have some of my own and make everybody else deal with them for a change.

Personal growth.

But seriously, I’ve become much more conscious of who I want around me. Friends, family, colleagues, whoever. I don’t expect everyone in my life to constantly inspire me or teach me something profound over coffee, obviously. That sounds exhausting. Sometimes I just want someone to send me a stupid meme.

But I do want the people around me to add something good to my life.

Peace. Laughter. Support. Growth. Kindness. Perspective.

Something.

And I want to give those things back too.

I think there comes a point where you realise that constantly maintaining relationships simply because they’ve existed for a long time isn’t necessarily loyalty. Sometimes it’s just habit.

And I’ve become much less sentimental about habit.

Maybe that’s wisdom.

Or maybe I’m just becoming grumpy.

We’ll see.

The funny thing is that while I’m increasingly certain about all these things, I’m actually less certain about what my life is going to look like.

And that doesn’t scare me nearly as much as I thought it would.

I still want to see more of the world. A lot more. The idea of spending my entire life in one place, living one version of myself, feels increasingly strange to me. I find myself fascinated by people who can work from anywhere, pack up their lives for a few months and go somewhere completely different. I don’t even know if that lifestyle would suit me permanently, but the possibility of it does something to my brain.

Wait… we can do that?

We don’t necessarily have to pick one city, one career, one routine and one version of ourselves and then just… remain there forever?

Interesting.

Very interesting.

Perhaps this is why uncertainty doesn’t really frighten me anymore.

I’ve even started researching where I might live when I’m properly old.

Yes.

We’ve skipped several decades.

Every now and then, purely out of curiosity, I’ll find myself looking at places designed for older people who live independently. Residences, communities, adapted homes, places where you can live alone but still have help nearby if you need it.

Some people might find that depressing.

I find it strangely reassuring.

I’m basically planning ahead.

If one day I’m 75, alone, and slightly difficult, I’d quite like to know where I’m going.

And there is one detail about all of this that makes me laugh every single time I think about it.

The hospital where I was born in Madrid is no longer a hospital.

It’s now a residence for older people.

I mean…

Come on.

😂

Maybe the universe has already sorted everything out for me.

Perhaps one day, after spending decades trying to figure out where I’m supposed to be, I’ll simply end up exactly where I started.

Full circle.

Very efficient.

Born here. Travelled around for a bit. Came back.

I do sometimes wonder what the version of me from ten years ago would think if he could see me now.

There are plenty of things I could tell him, but I think most of them would come back to one thing: live your own life.

Not the life somebody else thinks is best for you.

And that’s complicated because people don’t necessarily give you advice because they’re trying to control you. Usually it’s the opposite. People who love you genuinely believe they’re helping. Family, friends, partners, colleagues. Everyone has an opinion about what you should do because from where they’re standing, it makes perfect sense.

But they’re standing over there.

You’re standing here.

And I’ve learnt that keeping everybody else happy is a spectacularly inefficient way of becoming happy yourself.

Because after all that effort, somebody will still be unhappy.

There is always somebody.

So you might as well make sure it isn’t you.

I think younger me spent a lot more time keeping the peace. Doing the sensible thing. Listening. Adjusting. Trying not to disappoint people.

Older me is beginning to understand that sometimes disappointing somebody else is simply the price of not disappointing yourself.

And perhaps that’s where I am now.

I don’t have everything I thought I would have. My life doesn’t look exactly how I imagined it would. I don’t know where I’ll be living years from now, what I’ll be doing, who will still be around me or whether 75-year-old Raulito will actually be checking himself into the same building where this whole thing started.

But strangely, I don’t need to know.

What I do know is that I want more.

More places. More experiences. More freedom. More things that make me curious. More work that feels like mine. More time with people I actually want to spend time with. More versions of life that I haven’t even considered yet.

Much more.

Because surely this can’t be it.

And I mean that in the most hopeful way possible.

— Raulito