I pay close attention to the scalability of my actions. This often leads to situations where it seems like I’m acting against my best interests, but I want to make choices my future self will thank me for.

Instead of allowing myself a slow morning after a restless night, I go for a run.

Instead of relaxing on the couch, I'm teaching myself how to code.

Instead of avoiding a difficult conversation, I embrace it.

These things share one important truth: I know that I will feel better once they've happened. These actions are scalable because they optimize for delayed gratification. They anticipate a future that will be better because I welcomed friction.

Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.

Once I internalized this way of thinking, it changed how I see myself and those around me. Chasing instant gratification doesn't align with the life I want, and watching others do so isn't something I enjoy.

I want to be, and surround myself with, people who are willing to put in the effort to live a life their future selves will thank them for—people who make scalable, life-affirming choices because they know these actions grow and compound over time, leading to greater, unexpected benefits.

Since I started running in January, I’ve noticed something that, while not incredibly surprising, is still new to me: while I’m running, I feel stronger, more physically capable, and healthier. It’s a reliable way to experience eustress on a scalable level.

What’s more, when my body feels like it’s functioning as it should, the quality of my thinking improves as well.

Physical strength leads to clearer, more optimistic thoughts, and less ego-driven thinking. When I’m not using energy to build up defenses, it’s easier to be more kind, humble, friendly, empathetic, and loving.

In short, feeling physically strong makes it easier to think strong thoughts. Running is a simple, scalable and reproducable way to achieve that.

Apple nonchalantly released iOS 18 with a new feature that’s about to change the lives of a huge part of the population. Vehicle Motion Cues is an accessibility feature that’s on by default and activates when your iPhone detects a moving vehicle around you.

It works by layering a bunch of animated dots on top of the content you’re looking at. When the device detects changes in the vehicle’s motion, it animates the dots accordingly, tricking your brain into thinking everything is fine instead of making you feel like you need to puke because the real-life physics engine stopped working.

I’ve struggled with motion sickness and haven’t read a book in a car or bus in 29 years. I didn’t find it very convincing that showing little circles on top of everything else would help, but yesterday, I spent 24 minutes on a bus, reading a whole chapter, and I was completely fine.

That never happened before.

Vehicle Motion Cues works, and it literally changed my life.

Something I enjoy a lot is thinking about potential future versions of myself. At some point, I’m going to be a dog owner. Someone who enjoys classical music and regularly attends orchestral concerts. I might have a couple of years where I get into biking, woodworking, hiking or knitting.

It's not like I'm actively planning these versions. I might get a dog when I'm 50. Or when I'm 75. I could start woodworking tomorrow or 20 years from now. Maybe I'll spend my 40s learning how to play the piano. Who knows.

The fun in thinking about these possible iterations is not in knowing when exactly they're going to happen but in expecting to have a life full of achievable possibilities. A life full of things I’m going to enjoy.

No matter what happens, there’ll always be an iteration of me that’s preoccupied with his current obsession—who’s looking forward to getting out of bed to go for a walk with the dog, sanding a piece of wood, polishing a bowling ball for the big tournament, or practicing a sonata.

I love that for me.

It had been years since I was in the same room as a piano. That changed the other day, and I didn‘t expect how deeply hearing it live would move me—far more than a recording of the same piece would.

There’s something different about hearing an instrument played in person. Every speaker will always only be a representation of what the music is supposed to sound like. But when that layer of translation is removed something changes and you’re somehow able to feel the instrument as part of the music and room.

Now I‘m wondering if I should give going to the orchestra a try. Or even start a new side quest by taking piano lessons?

I feel like sharing thoughts with strangers online gets harder the longer you go without doing it. My plan was to write at least something in August so it wouldn’t be a month without any activity here. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Partly because my month was filled with great people, activities, and weather, and partly because I felt like I needed to write something of value and couldn’t manage to produce anything I was happy with.

As you can see, I decided to solve this issue by posting something about not posting anything. An age-old trick in blogging: blogging about blogging. That being said, I actually believe it helps to keep the sharing muscle from atrophying. These posts don’t cost me anything. I don’t have to be precious about them.

A lot has happened since I wrote about my intention to move back to Hamburg.

For example: I moved back to Hamburg.

The move itself went off without a hitch. My stuff was put into a truck, my cats and I were picked up by friends, and we all made it successfully to my new flat. It took far longer than expected, but it got done.

Since then, I have unpacked all the boxes, kind of arranged everything in a roughly pleasing way, and got to know my new neighborhood and even my neighbors. I have gone for lunch, dinner, and walks with friends. I continued running every other day, even together with friends. I went on a couple of dates, found a new dentist and hairdresser, and have thoroughly enjoyed where I live.

I can't stress the last point enough: my sheer existence here feels like bliss. I step out of the house and love every second of it. Life is happening all around me, and I'm taking part in it.

The last three weeks felt like reality has realigned with how it should be, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Let's face the facts: I could go on for hours and hours talking about how unhappy I am where I currently live. Trust me, in private, I sometimes struggle to talk about anything but this situation. Instead of boring you with post after post, let's just sum up what's going on and talk about how to solve it.

• I was convinced that life in a smaller town would be the right thing for me. Instead of trying it out for a couple of months, I moved there completely. Like an idiot. That might not have been the smartest decision, but it sure felt right at the moment.
• I was wrong. In terms of work, money, and negative emotions involved, this might have been the biggest mistake of my life. Which, all in all, speaks volumes about how good my life is going. It's a very privileged position to be in.
• At the same time, this might be the most important lesson of my life. I won’t ever have to wonder what life in a small town would be like, not to mention one of those dreamy cabin-in-the-woods situations people like me tend to fantasize about. Not for me, no thanks!
• All of this also changed my relationship with... people. Like, in general. I’m far more thankful for them. When visiting friends in Hamburg, I actually enjoyed being stuck in a completely overfilled subway. I enjoyed walking around the Alster dodging hundreds of people doing the same. It's a price I'm willing to pay for living in a proper city. It also gave me renewed motivation to work on my yearly theme.
• I was so convinced about moving here that I was fine with signing a tenancy agreement with a minimum rental period of two years. My thinking was that you'd have to at least give it a good shot for this amount of time to be able to figure out if you like it or not. Oopsie. (I can get out of it by paying a lot of money. The process is already underway.)

So, okay, whatever. Things happened, I was wrong about how I’d feel, and I went through all the necessary emotions to come to following conclusion:

I have to move.

Again.

Not great, not terrible. I learned a lot about myself and how I want to spend the rest of my life. That alone made this little, stupidly expensive intermezzo worth it. A solid 3.6 Roentgen situation.

So what's next?

I'll move back to Hamburg.

Before moving to Berlin about nine years ago, Hamburg was what I called my home, and it still feels like it. Most of my friends live there, I love the city, and I kind of can’t wait to come back.

So that’s it. I’m off trying to find a place to live in a city that is known for its horrendous housing market. Thanks for reading, and a big thanks to all of you who reached out to talk to me about this experience. I appreciate it!

Oh, by the way, if you hear something about a soon-to-be vacant apartment in Hamburg: Let me know!

I even built this little site you could share with your friends and colleagues to help me on my quest.

https://eine.wohnung.fuer.marcel.io

Thank you!

I Might Have Made an Oopsie

• Part 1: Local Retail
• Part 2: The People
• Part 3: The Possibilities
• Part 4: I'm moving back to Hamburg

What surprised me the most about my emotional state after moving from Berlin Mitte to a city of 100,000 inhabitants was how much I miss... everything.

I never made much use of what Berlin has to offer, yet I took quite a few things for granted.

Restaurants, for example. I could have sworn that I didn’t care that much about food. Unfortunately, that seems to have been the case only because I was surrounded by fantastic food and restaurants ever since moving out from home. I miss it—all the choices of different establishments, all the culinary options. The fact that 4.8 stars on Google Maps actually meant something. I’m not even complaining about the lack of vegetarian options. It’s not even possible to get good fries anywhere.

I could live with that, though, if it weren't for the fact that absolutely nothing else is going on. Of course, I expected there to be less to do, but not this little.

After scouring the internet for hours in February, I found one (ONE!) interesting thing to look forward to: a lecture about salt and its history, with a tasting of salts from all over the world at the end. I knew I'd be roughly half as old as the other participants, but I was ready to mingle when I booked it for mid-April.

The one real museum is being renovated and won't open for more than a year. Things that do happen, like cocktail nights in the sole co-working space, result in a gathering of like four people. Two of them are the owners of the place.

I'm not even kidding.

Going to the movies was always a great solution for me to get my mind off things. The one good cinema doesn't offer screenings with original language, though, and I won't watch American and British movies with German dubbing. I haven't lost all of my self-respect.

Even though I didn’t make much use of what Berlin has to offer, it was good to know that I had options. If I wanted to do something, there was more than enough, sometimes even too much. All the options felt paralyzing at times. Now I long for them. I expected a reduction in possibilities to feel freeing; instead, it’s just depressing.

By the way, that lecture about salt I mentioned earlier?

It got cancelled.

For lack of interest.

I Might Have Made an Oopsie

• Part 1: Local Retail
• Part 2: The People
• Part 3: The Possibilities
• Part 4: I'm moving back to Hamburg