I am sitting in a café right now, and I wanted to start writing this piece, inspired by the experiences and thoughts that people have brought into my life.
Before I even started writing, I overheard a conversation between two people discussing healthcare in the Netherlands. I have not checked all the details myself yet, but it made me wonder about how the system works. There are contracts and agreements between healthcare providers and insurance companies that can influence how much care is purchased and how it is organised. This can sometimes contribute to differences in access and waiting times, although it would be too simple to say that there is just a fixed number of surgeries after which an insurance company simply stops paying.
And somehow, listening to this conversation made me think about people.
Every day, we hope to encounter humanity in other people. We hope to find places where people care about one another, where they care about nature, and where they feel responsible for the world they live in.
And yet, sometimes the world can feel like a strange mixture of billions of people, all living through their own struggles, fears, ambitions and experiences.
We all have our own ways of coping with life. Sometimes we are empathetic. Sometimes we are selfish. Sometimes we are exhausted and simply trying to get through the day. Sometimes we make decisions without fully understanding how those decisions affect someone or something else.
We can enjoy a beach without thinking about what we leave behind. We can consume things without thinking about where they came from. We can benefit from systems without always seeing the people or living beings affected by them.
But perhaps that is also simply part of being human.
We are constantly learning.
Nature seems to have an incredible ability to recover and adapt, and perhaps people do too. We make mistakes, we hurt each other, we lose our way, and sometimes we find our way back.
One thought I find comforting is that none of us can completely control the future of another living being. We can influence one another, sometimes deeply, but we cannot completely determine where another person’s life will go.
And sometimes, when life becomes complicated, that is a comforting place for me to return to.
But to go back to the topic of people.
I have had some wonderful, and some difficult, experiences with people in the working world, and there are a few things I would like to share.
The working environment
The first thing I would like to share is something about working environments.
I have come across the idea that describing a workplace as a family can sometimes create an unhealthy dynamic. And the more I think about it, the more I understand why.
This does not mean that you cannot have a good time at work. You can. You can make friends, build meaningful relationships, and sometimes even meet people who become very important in your life. But a workplace also has a purpose. It is a place where we come to work, develop our skills, contribute something, learn, and hopefully grow. It does not have to become our entire life. The difficulties often become more visible when things change.
Someone may decide to leave. Someone may have to leave. New people arrive with different personalities, expectations and ways of working. A team that has been together for years may have developed its own routines and relationships, and suddenly someone new has to find their place within them. That is not necessarily anyone’s fault. It is simply what happens when people share a space for a long time.
When I was younger, I imagined having a company where everyone would feel like a family. But I have slowly learned that creating a warm and supportive workplace does not necessarily require calling it a family.
Maybe a healthy working environment is something slightly different. It can be a place where people work towards a shared goal, respect each other, communicate openly, and feel safe enough to discuss difficult things. You can care about your colleagues without needing them to become your family.
And perhaps that distinction gives everyone a little more freedom. One big lesson I recently learned at work was actually a confirmation of something I had understood before, but somehow forgotten.
I sometimes see people trying very hard to build relationships with their supervisors or colleagues, perhaps doing more than is actually required because they want to demonstrate that they are reliable, loyal or trustworthy. I understand this because I have done it too. We all want to feel appreciated. We want our work to be recognised. We want to believe that the relationships we build will also help us when we need support. And sometimes they do. But life does not always work that way. There may come a point when the person you have invested so much in simply cannot do much for you. Not because they do not care, but because they have their own limitations, responsibilities and circumstances.
And perhaps that is another thing we sometimes forget about relationships. People can be important to us without being responsible for our entire journey. The same applies to family. Growing sometimes means growing in different directions. It can mean leaving an environment that once felt comfortable. It can mean discovering that something that was good for you at one point in your life is no longer the right place for you now.
And perhaps a workplace can be the same. Sometimes the environment that feels most familiar is not necessarily the environment where you can grow the most. So, if there is one question I would like you to take from this, it is:
How do you feel in the environment where you work?
Can you grow there and speak openly?
Can you question things or can you become a different and better version of yourself?
And can you maintain meaningful relationships with people without feeling that you have to belong to them?
Honesty
The second thing is honesty.
There is an endless number of lessons about how important honesty is in our lives. And yet, I often feel that whenever honesty puts us in a difficult situation, we suddenly become afraid that we are going to fail by doing the right thing.
Maybe this is where we meet our ego. And maybe this is also where we learn the most. It is important to stay honest with yourself, but also to be honest about yourself around other people. Sometimes that honesty will create a moment of doubt. It may make someone question you, or it may make you question yourself.
But perhaps questioning is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it is exactly what allows us to grow. In the long run, honest communication can create an environment of trust and growth for everyone involved. So I encourage everyone, including myself, to try to be honest with ourselves, with other people, and with the situations we find ourselves in.
Not necessarily brutally honest. Not honesty used as a weapon. But honest enough to allow ourselves and others to understand where we actually stand. I think that kind of honesty can bring us closer to calm nights, peaceful dreams, and the feeling that our lives are moving in a direction that makes sense to us. And, at the end of the day, it can also make life a little easier.
What do you actually want to do?
The final thing I wanted to share is about how important it is to look at your life and ask yourself whether you are actually doing things you want to do.
We have only a certain amount of time here.
And I am slowly realising that the more time we spend doing things that do not feel meaningful to us, the more energy we may lose for changing the things we actually want to change. Of course, it is not always possible to immediately leave something we do not like.
Sometimes we need to stay for financial reasons. Sometimes we have responsibilities and need time to understand what we want instead.
And that is okay.
Change does not always have to happen immediately. Sometimes it starts with a small realisation or with admitting to yourself that something is no longer working. Sometimes it starts with allowing yourself to imagine a different life. Change can come with doubts. It can mean being more alone for a while. It can mean carrying certain things by yourself and wondering whether you made the right decision. But that does not mean it is impossible.
I believe that, eventually, we can all find our own path if we keep looking for it. Maybe the goal is not to find a perfect life, but it is simply to create a life that feels increasingly like your own. And perhaps that is what I am learning about people too.
We are all trying to find our way.
Some of us are further ahead in certain things, some of us are struggling with things others cannot see, and sometimes we hurt one another without even realising it. But we are also capable of learning. We are capable of changing and of choosing differently. And perhaps that is where the real hope in people comes from. Because we do not have to remain exactly who we were yesterday. We can grow and we can leave. We can return and apologise and also start again. And, most importantly, we can choose how we want to spend the time we have. Because our time is one of the few things we cannot get back.
