Hello July? 👹🍣🎎 My Japan

And just like that, half a year has flown by. If it weren’t for the calendar making it perfectly clear, I would hardly believe it. But June has already come and gone, and now half of this year is already behind us. As usual, I’m not the only one who finds it a little surreal again, but in the end, six months really aren’t that long, and as I said, they’re over in the blink of an eye.

So what’s happened? For some, absolutely nothing; for others, quite a lot. Personally, I suppose I count myself among the first group, because I can’t really list everything I’ve accomplished so far this year. Unfortunately, there aren’t any major successes to report, but fortunately, there haven’t been any major setbacks either.

But if I take a closer look, we’ve at least seen a few things, even if it often slips from memory quite quickly—actually, much too quickly. Everyday life always pulls us back in way too fast for me to really have a chance to look back and reflect.

So yes, we’ve made it through half a year, though I’m not really happy that the first six months are already over. I’d rather stop time and hold on to this moment for as long as possible. Not because everything is perfect right now, but simply because I’m not looking forward to the future.

That might sound silly, but I think a lot of us feel that way. Not just these days, but especially right now. Even though there’s always a lot of room for improvement everywhere—and thus plenty of potential for growth—the chances that things will actually get better are pretty slim. If you take a closer look at the whole situation, it seems like things are only going to get even harder and more exhausting from here on, and we will probably end up worrying even more than we already do.

Actually, I’m not really that negative by nature. But even when I approach things realistically, there’s no guarantee I’ll have a real reason to celebrate by the end of the year. Sure, the sun will shine every now and then, and we’ve got something big planned for late summer, too. But nevertheless, I’m afraid I don’t see where I’ll be making any progress in the near future. Which, of course, is also my fault—I don’t need to make excuses for that.

Well, moping around won’t help here either. So I’d better try to take my mind off things as quickly as possible. Maybe I’ll come up with a few ideas in due course and figure out how to move forward. Maybe a change of scenery will help clear my head a bit in this regard...