Do you have brothers or sisters?

- Do you have brothers or sisters?

- No?

- No? then my friend, let me tell you something…

- You will not understand about real ADRENALINE rush, if you were never chased around the dinner table because your brother wanted to kick your ass.

- You will not know what feel GUILTY means when everyone got punished… especially if it was because your fault.

- You will not know about LOYALTY if you never made a   mischief together and keep it in secret, even under all the pressure from the parents.

- You will not understand the true meaning of HAPPINESS if you haven’t hear “you are going to be uncle”

- You will not understand feel deep SADNESS if you haven’t seen them leave home or miss them very much because they are not around.

- You will not understand the feeling of SECURITY if they never fought for you with their own life.

- You will not understand the feeling of JOY if you never cry of happiness… because of them.

Brothers and sisters are the first friends that anyone has and there is nothing we wouldn’t do for them, we love as we love our life.

The Searcher by Jorge Bucay

This is the story of a man who I would define as a searcher. A searcher is a person who searches, but does not necessarily find anything.  Nor it is someone who necessarily knows what he is looking for. It is simply someone who takes life itself as a search.

One day, the searcher felt he had to go to the city of Kammir. He had learned to follow his internal voice, although he didn’t know where that voice came from. He left everything and took off.

After two days walking along dusty roads, he could see, on the horizon, the silhouette of Kammir. Shortly before arriving in the town, he noticed a low hill on the right side of the road. It was covered with a wonderful green lawn and lots of trees, birds and flowers and was surrounded by a small shiny wooden fence. He saw a small gate, and decided to go through it.

He suddenly forgot the town and wanted to rest in this place. As he crossed the gate he walked slowly among white stones that were distributed randomly between the trees.

His eyes were like butterflies alighting on each detail of this amazing and colorful paradise. His searching eyes discovered an inscription carved on a stone.

Abdul Tareg, lived 8 years, 6 months, 2 weeks and 3 daysHe realized that the stone was not just a stone,  but a gravestone. He felt sorry for the kid buried in this place and as he looked around, he noticed that there were other stones with inscriptions. He stepped closer and read:

Yamir Kalib, lived 5 years, 8 months and 3 weeks

He felt deeply saddened and moved. This beautiful place happened to be a cemetery and each stone was a grave. One by one, he read the inscriptions. They all were similar: a name, and the exact time the buried person had lived. But what shocked him most, was to notice that the one who had lived the longest, had been just over 11years old.

He felt a terrible pain, sat down and gave vent to his tears.

The guardian of the cemetery was walking by and he approached the crying man. He watched him in silence for a few moments, then he asked him if he was crying for a relative.

“No, no relative”, the searcher replied. “What is wrong in this town? Why are all these children buried here? What is the curse on the people of this town that they had to build a cemetery for children?”

The older man smiled and replied:

“Calm down my friend. There is no curse on this town. We just happen to have a ritual. Let me tell you about it. When a young person has his fifteenth birthday, his parents give him a little notebook, like this one I have here hanging on my chest. Starting that day, it is a tradition among us to open the notebook and note inside it, every time we have an intensely happy experience. We write down on the left what we enjoyed, and on the right, how long the enjoyment lasted. You met your girlfriend and fell in love with her. How long did the intense passion last? How long the happiness of having found her? A week?  Two? Three and a half?… Then, the emotion of the first kiss, how long did it last? A minute? Two days?  A week? Pregnancy, or the birth of a daughter….? The wedding of a friend? The most anticipated trip? Meeting a brother returning from a distant country? How long did the enjoyment of each of these situations last? Hours?  Days?”

And so… we just write down in the little notebook each moment we enjoy…every single moment.

When someone dies, it is our tradition to open his notebook, and add up the time he has enjoyed, and then we write it on his gravestone. Because this is, for us, the only time the person really lived.

Four Years

September 18^th I left Arequipa, Peru for my adventure in Europe, I got elected MCVP in AIESEC Macedonia for the term 2007-2008.

September 19^th I arrived to a beautiful country called Macedonia for an original idea of spending 8 months and then returning home, 4 years later I’m writing from Germany somehow celebrating, my 4^th year in the old continent, my 4^th year away from my family.

Looking backwards they were 4 amazing years that brought me many learning experiences in every aspect of my professional, personal and spiritual life.

I learned to say I LOVE YOU to a very special person who shared 3 years of her life with me but, sadly and painfully, life showed me to say GOOD BYE to her (the hardest thing I did in my life). But again, looking backwards, those were good years, she was the best thing that happened to my life until now, and to her I’ll be eternally grateful.

I discovered that you can never be granted of having everything ensured such like job, money, relationship, health, friends, etc. A good friend passed away in 2010, but leaving me the most inspirational message that I could have ever imagined. Figuratively speaking he gave me a slap in my face for a wake-up call, since then I can really notice I’m different for good.

I learned to deal with my fears and solve every complicated situation face to face. This one was very hard to deal with because I rather avoid things than face them. 2011 was the year where I faced many challenges in the professional and, specially, personal side.

I’m connecting the dots and almost everything makes sense, every decision I made or every situation the destiny drop me let me to something really good; there is only one thing that I still can’t understand and trying to find out the sense of it, I believe this means there is still a string waiting to be connected to that dot, we will see, life is life and my lead performance in the play is still waiting for me.

4 years in Europe, don’t know how many more, I just know there is still time.

Just for closing this post, THANK YOU to all of you who shared your life with me in this past 4 years; It was an almost __________ experience :) (if you know me a bit, you might be able to complete the blank space :P )

With love and respect,

Yoelinho
Bonn, Germany

Just one year ago...

This post is not related to AIESEC, however I believe is worth to share it.

It is a pretty weird feeling when you meet for first time a person and immediately you became friends.  It was during a championship, one of my team mates introduced me to his cousin, who will join to the club, 2 years younger than me, funny face, crazy and kind of stupid like…

This is how I meet you... MY FRIEND.

13 years later, even the number is creepy; I read your stupid email with the subject “Cholo, as always I’m the first in everything ;)”… I was traveling and had no much time for emails so I couldn’t read this email almost a week after, when I opened it I saw a large email, so I was surprised because, you little bastard never spend time to write, you rather call or explain everything in 2 lines, anyway, because of the subject I thought you are going to get married or maybe you will get married and being a father too, so once again I was thinking on how much I hate you because you want to be first in everything I want to do.

I read the email 4 days later and I couldn’t believe what it was written there and even worst I didn’t have the chance to answer it...

No handshake, no one more beer argument, no Starcraft duel… just like that you left... first.

The black ribbon, our promise once we did is kept, not sure when will be time to get back, but until then it will be in my wrist.

For the email, thank you, it helped me and sure it will keep helping me in the future, and this is what I feel is worth sharing,.. For the readers, I’m just posting some things in very short statements, many other thing just make sense for him and me:

• Be yourself, be yourself and be yourself because at the end you have to stand yourself before standing your wife.
• Never let anyone eat alone not even to yourself.
• Small details are very important.
• If you fucked up, then fix it, is never too late or too impossible. You just need to get rid of your silly proud.
• Don’t lie, please don’t, even if you are good at it.
• A big hug, a huge kiss or a well done handshake should be never be forgotten, you don’t know if is going to be the last one, and please, do it if you really mean it.
• Home is where your heart feels joyful and for obvious reasons where the one you love is happy next to you.

One year ago he left this world, although for me is hard to understand it, for me he is still in my country or traveling around the world.

Take care my friend. Cheers and rest in peace...

And once again... in search of my successor

We AIESECers know that because our term is just one year, we get this ability of learning, building, planning, and performing in really short time, and without noticing is already moment to search for our successor...

I have to admit it, is a feeling of excitement and sadness... picture it in this way, you have spent many months, non sleeping, traveling, fighting, challenging yourself in order to build what you have built to the point of ownership that you see your work as your baby, and for sure, you don't want to leave your work to someone that can not give a good care of it, and when you find the right one, is a feeling of vision, imagination, dream to see where else this person can take the work you have started... (still with sadness, because after all, you have to leave your baby to this new person).

Well, I thought this path had ended for me, but seems is back... I'm close to finish my job, and is time to find the new me :) It is going to be hard, because aside from my MCP term, I also love this job.

So August it is, in two weeks from now I will know HIM or HER... I just wish to find a better candidate than me... just like I did it before.

And of course, this doesn't come alone, there is still an extra excitement moment in this process... the NEXT STEP... but for that I'm not worry, and you shouldn't, because the next step shouldn't be forced, it will just happen when the right moment and time will come, you will just know... I don't mean to laid at bed a hope for some divine message... I mean, keep searching and looking around, be aware that you are looking for that next step, it will be then when it will just happen... you might don't know it yet, but maybe it is already there, but you can not just see it... don't worry, give it time, is just something you can not push, but trust me... it will happen.   

Understanding life...

After a long year of resting of my writings (at least online sharing) finally I'm back writing on my blog...

There are many things I've learned in this past year and a half that I was not writing, many things to share, so I will start for few things that matters for me.

Will you be able to change your career to start over in some other field? Will you have the courage to leave a manager position to start something else as a recent graduated? Will you move and leave everything for a relationship or family?

During this year I had the opportunity to interview several candidates for several roles and positions, and the only thing I have to say is if you really listen them, you can not just understand them, but even you can learn from them.

I can write you pages and talk to you by hours about only one candidate's point of view about life or about his/hers decisions, but the goal of all that discussion would be, What did we learn from it?

Among those interviews I remember one particular moment that I will always keep in my mind; It was a +40 years old individual, sitting in front of me, totally harmless, with something in the eyes that was not right, as usual I asked all the questions by the book, but still there was something missing, I could feel it... I didn't mind the interview could last more than 1 hour (max time for interviews), I really wanted to know...

After talking for more than 50 minutes, the true came forward, I didn't need to force him, I just asked the right question in the right way hoping he will open, and he did... it was not an elaborated answer prepared at home to make himself a good candidate, the true was better than any possible answer and the expression in his eyes where the stamp that confirmed everything.

A good career path, everything planned, some things were good some not, got a manager position, finally the achievement aimed for many years but, as he mentioned to me, at the end he noticed he was risking a lot for that and he couldn't cope with it, salary was good, many travels, many responsibilities but also many hours in the office, many hours away from his house (house because it was not a home anymore), thinking that all that sacrifice done for those years will pay back and will finally enjoy with his family.

"Family, well hard to say a family now, I love my wife, but now we are more likely as flatmates" . There was not need to ask more, it was clear, so I changed the topic and asked about something else.

He knew what was happening, he knew what was he losing, what was he risking, but he knew it too late, when things were broken and seemed to be no way back; it was then when he saw a slight and tiny opportunity, "I want a wife again, and I want a home again".

This interview was one my first interviews last year, I recommended this candidate for the positions, although the chances to elect him were small because of a "expectations/experience mismatch". At the end we couldn't hire him for the position he was applying for... however a month later I saw one position where he can fit a bit better, and I knew I could convince the project manager to take him on board, and he did.

More than six months have passed, and ... he just bought a house because he is going to be a father next year, now he is stress with the moving and the pre baby activities, but as he told me once, "actually this is a good life" and then he said, "Got to go home"

Some people can Balance their work/personal life, some people can not, but you have to be strong enough to admit it and even stronger to take actions to change that.

Really, sometimes life is way easier, we are the ones that make it complicated.

Merry Christmas my friends

I heard once, and once only by a very good friend, whom I respect the most but today is not among us... friends are the best and the worst that can happen to you... because they have the particular capacity to amaze you, hurt you, make you laugh and cry, at the point that they will make you cross the line between love and hate many, but many times.

Those individuals you call friends, are by definition and already took responsibility of what who you once were, the one you are now and who you'll soon become.

As I declared before, once, and no need to repeat it, although repeating makes it distinctive, there is nothing else I need for Christmas but my friends close to me... as for now, my friends, each of you, no exceptions taken, no criteria evaluated, you are on my mind and in my heart and certainly in my life, because, with simple maths, I'm the one who I am, because each of you and for that... THANK YOU!

Feliz Navidad Amigos Mios!

Best regards,

Yoel, Yo, Chuchu, Yoelo, Yoelce, Djole, Cholito, Yoyo, Zubi, Yoi, ñaños, Tuto
(or however you called me)
Budapest, Hungary
25th December 2010