A world that's 20 years old

I grew up with Romanian folk music and concerts and singing at all family parties. Taina (The Secret) was one of my favourite songs and I remember how every year and every time I heard it I was thinking how long is there left until I can say

Tonight, Mother, the world is mine

A world that’s 20 years old

Look at the game, Mother, and shut up, don’t ask

It’s very simple, it’s my day.

I wish I could have sung this with my whole family at a campfire, to be heard in the whole neighbourhood, and in the morning to have our neighbours thanking us for making their night better with our music. But I don’t want to put anyone in danger. I’ll still be in a world that’s 20 years old until I’m 29.

In the last few years, I was always in the middle of a learning opportunity - at 18 I was organising this huge national festival for Non-Formal Education, at 19 I was in the middle of the Youth Worker course. At 20 I’m in the middle of a pandemic, probably the most complex learning opportunity that the entire post-modern society is going through.

For me, the 9th of August is like New Years - I start a new year so I’m thinking about the past year and what I want to do in the next 12 months. The thing is that 20 sounds like an age when you start wanting a job, a family, your house, your car, to get fit, things that adults who make trips at Ikea wish for. And, although I am crazy for Ikea, I don’t feel like making an ‘adult’ list and I hope I never will feel like that. I’m not saying that what I mentioned before would not be valid for those who click with such things, but it’s simply not something that I would put on the list. Instead, this year my desire to change the world is slowly becoming an objective.

I already consider that my work has an impact on the people around me. It’s not a huge impact and it doesn’t get too far, but any small change is important. You know, a small step for the human, a huge step for humankind. From now the little will become more and more, and until the end of the ‘decade’, I plan to make my impact official. Books, literature, the blog, DEIS UK, projects, youth worker, volunteering - are just a few keywords that I’ve been using all the time in the last 4 years and I will continue to promote them.

At 20 I can say that I feel I’m on my road and I’m convinced I made the best decisions. Every step, something confirms that what I’m doing is good. I will be honest with you that sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that I am and I can, it’s called the impostor syndrome. It’s mostly hard when I see other young people my age (or even fully grown adults) who decided to sacrifice their happiness because they were taught this is life. It’s not really like this. In life, we need contexts in which each of us can discover themselves, explore passions and opportunities and see how we can combine something useful with something pleasant. And we would need to stop judging people if we don’t resonate with their passion, but that’s another discussion.

I have been and I am privileged in many aspects of my life from family, education, friends, to the opportunities that I have enjoyed and I am enjoying. And it would have been very easy for me to stay in my bubble and not care about what’s outside of it. It was painful and many times I wanted to run back to comfort, but I didn’t. Why? First of all, because I understood that many young people need opportunities and second of all because many privileged young people need to see the world from another perspective too. We need a bridge between those who can and those who need, and everything that happened so far in 2020 only proved this.

On the 9th of August 2020, when I turn 20, I still wish to change the world as much as I wished to change it when I was 13 and I was starting to understand what’s going on in the world. Now, when I turn 20, I also have the tools I need. I’m ready.

Don’t ask any questions

I’m tired of questions

Let this be uncertain

It’s my secret, it’s my secret, I’m not sharing it with anyone.