15 years from now

Yesterday we entered our first day of quarantine prior Fridays game in the Frauen Bundesliga. We stay in a nice hotel in the same city we all live in, with beautiful scenery to wake up to. When entering the hotel yesterday I felt like I’d be gone for a number of weeks, given the amount of stuff I brought with me.

A regular training camp would involve us walking around in kit provided from club or country, and so one travel very lightly. This time we all want to have the feeling of kind of being at home but not quite, so we are using private clothes in between the sessions, hence the huge amount of packing. I am not used to travel so much when private. For a long time I never had traveled for vacation. I think I was so stressed about training so vacations never really were in the plans. Or I had a cat or a dog to attend to. It wasn’t until 2009 that I joined some of my teammates from Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC, heading to Thailand. At that point I had just met Sabine and the first week out of two she joined me there. That was my first vacation abroad in many years, as a grown up I would probably say. That is how serious I considered football at that time, never fully resting my mind or body more than maybe max 4-5 days. As you can imagine, that was not sustainable, but that is also another blog post to write (note to self).

Anyway, yesterday I sat down with three teammates for dinner (with plenty of physical distance from each other) and we began to talk about where we’d be in 15 years time from now. I realised that I would be past fifty at that point, said it out loud and that brought a good laugh to the table. My teammates thought I’d be involved in lots of different things. Not just focusing in one area. That is probably a correct thing to assume even though I’d love to find one area where I could put a lot of passion into that and only that in combination with family and friends. One of my favourite TV-programs is Dragons Den and people that can’t keep their full focus in one project are always rejected. I can understand this. Looking back, what was it that brought me a lot of success in football? My dedication to football.

At the same time it made me the most egotistic and boring person to bring into a dinner party as I only knew stuff about football. I wasn’t able to take in much more. Now, I’ve realised there are so much more to life and I can’t wait until I fully get to explore everything that life have to give. I understand there need to be focus to succeed fully, but now I am not sure I really want to sacrifice everything anymore. I have two beautiful boys that deserve full attention, a wonderful wife that has sacrificed so much of her own stuff to support my life style. Fifteen years from now I dream about being a successful entrepreneur with social skills. With a balanced life. Is it possible to reach a better quality of life, with more free time, but with money growing on the side? Is it possible to find success without opportunity cost that includes time with family and friends?

I think the other teammates at the table would likely become: a huge player within property management, another one working for UEFA in some leadership role and the last one will write books. The one who I think might write books disagreed with this, but that is my feeling. She was also the one in the team that was most likely to raise four children (according to us who sat with her) and we all know it is not easy to find the alone time when having four children around. We shall see.

Finally, I’ve decided to make the best of these days in quarantine. When forced into spending a great deal of time in a day alone, I would like to use it wisely. Yesterday I went to bed early, so here I am, awake an hour before breakfast. I started with a short meditation from Headspace (of which I am not sponsored) and then I started this blog post. I want to incorporate new habits that involve more healthy food and more time spent on things that are good for me (less surfing and watching other peoples lives) and to spend time towards what is important for me. Right now those things are: energy levels, head/mind, kids, wife, mobility, friends, value for others.

Where do you see yourself in 15 years and are you acting towards what you find valuable in the long run?