Work – Life – Balance – 152/2025

A new month. Again. Already. Why did no one tell me that time flies when you get older? Or is it just me? I’ve once again made the vague resolution to be more present. On here with posting a bit more, even if it’s not elaborate deep pondering on the state of the world (are my posts ever?). But also be more present in my life in general. Let’s how it goes.


The new conservative chancellor thinks and states that we Germans need to work more. His party and his conservative part of the government agree. “We” need to be more productive, create more wealth or as he puts it do it to “maintain the current state of wealth”. He only ever mentions the term “work – life – balance” in a derogative way and turns it into something silly and “woke” and wonders why we all don’t just consider our work our life. I know I paraphrase and simplify here. But this whole idea that we all can and need and should want to spend more hours working reeks of such a typical old white male privileged view of the world. It equally drives me mad and makes me despair. There are more eloquent pieces out there disproving his “facts” and masterfully arguing that our society would collapse if we all spend more hours at work and less with activities which benefit our society as a whole, but not contribute to the gross national product. Unpaid care work. All the volunteers running so many corners of our lives (more on that later) without getting paid for it.

I recently spoke to a guy who’s running his own construction company with a dozen or so employees. He’s doing it successfully and I’m happy for him. He then mentioned the 60-70 hours of work he puts in each week. It wasn’t necessarily meant as an accolade, but it was implied that it’s normal for that kind of job. He’s married with two children in their teens. Of course he can put in 60-70 hours of work each week, because he’s got a wife at home taking care of everything else. We don’t know each other well enough for me to comment on any of that, but of course I thought it.

Our new government also wants to loosen up on maximum hours of work per day / week. Which might be an ok idea for people who want to work more hours each day or each week. Though most of those I’d assume are already on contracts where they can be flexible with their hours and where they get paid for any overtime. They can work more hours already. But what about all those jobs where your boss decides your hours and then all of a sudden you’re on for 4 x 12 hours shifts and then get a day off. But your a single mum and day care doesn’t cover 12 hours shifts. What do you then? Not to mention all the physically taxing jobs, which already with the mere regular working hours ruin your health before you reach retiring age. Argh!

And no, of course nobody considers maybe taxing the uber rich in Germany a tiny bit more to provide the cash influx our nation obviously needs to pay for social security, infrastructure and all the rest.

Do I sound jaded? Damn right I am. Jaded and frustrated and tired of it all.


Feeling jaded and frustrated and tired is also the reason why I’m phasing out of my involvement with politics on a local level by the end of the summer. I’ve been actively engaged with it for over 20 years now. Not quite half my life but not that far off either. I enjoyed doing it for most of the time and thought my contribution (time and mental energy) to the cause was a worthy one. And it still might be or rather I know it would be, but I’m at a point where I just can’t bring myself to care. For a variety of reasons: systematic ones and interpersonal ones and of course personal ones. I felt like that for a while but just this year I’ve finally reached the state of mind where I need to put my own mental well being first. These activities drain my mental energy more than they replenish it so it’s actually a quite simple decision.

Or it should have been, had not my inherent (personal? educated as a woman?) need to not let other people down and to take care of stuff, because others won’t and someone has to, kept me bound to it as long as it has. I still feel a tiny bit guilty about stepping down and not being as engaged any more, but I’ll get over it. I hope.

Politics on a local level rely on people being willing to volunteer their time and energy. Just as so many other community services do. Health support groups, churches, help for refugees, the local art scene, libraries, every single sports club offering activities for all ages. I witnessed that yesterday when I visited a U 17 tournament about 30 minutes drive away, because a relative I haven’t seen in decades is coaching a participating team. Taking this youth tournament as example: it needs parents or just regular people interested in that sport, who are willing to give up their time to

  • coach
  • drive / chaperone
  • do all the necessary admin
  • take care of the catering for teams and visitors
  • referee or judge

The list goes on and on. Who is going to do all that when we are forced to work 50 hour weeks to create more wealth. Wealth of what kind? And for whom?


Thursday was a public holiday here and I had the day off work on Friday as well, so I decided to do something to replenish my mental energy. I took the train to Düsseldorf to visit a museum with two exhibitions which interested me; one of which is closing today. I brought my camera and took lots of photos in the museum and during the stroll towards the very posh city centre as well. I had been aiming for street art, but in the end focused on decals / stickers. They are everywhere on lampposts, traffic lights, hand rails and it was an interesting experience to walk through a city with my eyes sometimes focused on those. There will be tons of photos of the exhibitions and the decals, but I need to sort through them first.

But here is one from the pitch I visited yesterday: “Form Gangs”, it says. Which is always a good idea in my mind. Find your people. Band together. Support each other.

Decal at a sports field

“Let Go of the Little Distractions” – 138/2025

Lyrics: “Polaroid Picture” – Frank Turner, 2013

Did I start living so outrageously, that I forgot all about this blog, you might wonder after this month long radion silence? No, I did not. I just didn’t find the time or topic or mood to write anything. Whenever I thought about doing a recap of the past four weeks it felt too overwhelming so I didn’t start writing anything. I won’t do a proper recap now either.

I had a lovely time celebration my 50th birthday. I spent a few nice days in Antwerp. After that regular life took over with work and schedules and things to do. With things to procrastinate on or get distracted by. The usual for me. There also has been some more introspection and the constant inner work of figuring things out, but I won’t bore you with that. Let’s just start over with a few photos from today, ok?

For my 50th birthday some friends gifted me an “outdoor escape room” / digital scavenger hunt experience in Cologne. We did that today and it was lots of fun. We spent 2.5 hours exploring the Ehrenfeld quarter, which is characterized by it’s diverse scene. People from various countries and cultures, pubs, cafe’s, little shops and lots of street art, galeries and just a vibrant atmosphere. On the trail we had to follow we passed through various streets I remembered having parked my car in when I went to a gig nearby and we even passed a small venue I have been to once in the past decade. For Will Varley in 2018 / 2019? I don’t exactly recall. I’ve gone to quite q few gigs in Cologne in the past 20 or so years. It felt a bit weird to be back there in the daylight, but not in a bad way.

I plan to definitely be back for a proper street photography tour in Ehrenfeld the summer. Here now are just a few shots from today:

“Time To Start Living Outrageously” – 110/2025

Lyrics: “Be A Freak” – Felix Hagan & The Family (2018)

I had finished writing this post two days ago and had just been looking for a good picture to go with it, when the scatterbrain part of my personality took over and I never got around posting. I then also for a bit got dragged down into the vortex of despair about the current state of the world. USA turning into a fascist state. UK denying basic rights to trans women. Gaza, Sudan, climate crisis. Shouldn’t I use my space and time and energy talking about that? Taking a stand, sharing ressources and all that? I try to do that on Instagram at least, for whatever good that might do. And I try to stay informed via independed, trustworthy sources.

This all while I had already been thinking about what to do with / post on this online space of mine. I’m not going to bore you with the back and forth of my pondering. I’m still here, trying to use it every once in a while, even if I am not ready yet to use it for fighting the injustices of the world. I might never use this space for that. After I took many of my previous posts down I’m back to the question of how to share some things without sharing too much. Why share at all? I guess I feel inclined to, because some of the people who read this might connect with what I’m sharing and feel a bit better and less alone in this messy existence we all live in. I might also have felt a bit inspired by the one and only Robbie Williams and his musings about his mental health issues on his Instagram and how much I often can relate how much it helps me to not feel alone in all of this. Anyway.


Work and life have been sort of busy these past few weeks and even though I’m still overthinking things quite a bit, I also try to practice more self-compassion. I’m doing okay with that, I think. All in all I’ve been “in my head” quite a lot, but not in a bad / negative / worrysome way and more in an introspective / reflective “Mmh, that might be why I (re)act like this” kind of way. Trying to figure stuff out about myself. Not always succeeding yet, but at least I feel like I’m getting there and the nasty gremlin voice in my head definitely are much quieter these days. I might / should do a post about the ressources that help me get to that state of mind. Podcasts, books and the social media presence of the people behind these.

I had a job appraisal / annual talk with my supervisor recently and I admit I was dreading it a bit. What can I say, I still AM a “worrier”. But it went fine, more than fine actually. The gremlin voice only for a short moment latched on the one tiny thing I was told I could improve in. But the otherwise glowing appraisal of my work managed to shut up the gremlin quickly. Good days.


The other major thing on my mind is, that I have a big birthday coming up next week. Again I’m glad to report that it’s not weighing on me too much. I don’t experience much of a midlife crisis, regrets and worries and such. I’m ok with turning 50. There I said it. I talked about it quite a bit recently with other people who know the date is coming up. The thing is: I’m grateful for finally having reached some sort of serenity. Or to put it more bluntly: Glad that I’ve learned to give less of a fuck! I’ve worried and been anxious and felt miserable for too much of my life so far. I don’t want to do that anymore and I’m glad I’ve reached a state of mind and learned some tools to do less of it. I still worry and I still am anxious sometimes, but so much less than I used to. I now could fret about how long it took me to figure it out (to some extent) and mourn how much quality time I lost because of that delay. But what would be the point of that? Onwards and upwards.

Photo of a small silver bracelet on a wooden table. Visible Inscribtion on bracelet reads "to star lving outrageously
Another lyrical bracelet “Time to start living outrageously”

I don’t have a big party planned for my birthday, because I’m not a big party person. I do have low key plans with various friends for a few of days. For such a long time the nasty gremlin in my head told me, that I’m not worth the fuss and that my existence doesn’t deserve to be celebrated, so doing low key stuff with family and friends feels like a good compromise. I’m only half kidding. A tiny part of me is still a bit baffled that friends are willing to take time off from work and travel quite a bit to come and spend some time with me. A bigger part of me though is glad that I’ve learned to just accept the fact, that they care about me and that they are willing to do that.


I’ve been compiling a “decades of my life” playlist to have on in the car or in the background of the birthday activities next week. Music has always been a big thing for me since my early teens. I have vivid memories – or at least I think I do – of the first few times I recorded songs from the radio on tape while doing homework in the afternoon. “It’s a Sin” is a song I remember from that time. I remember the first singles I bought with my pocket money in the record / music section of the local small town department store. The record section was shut down decades ago and so has the department store by now. I remember the first gig I went to. It took place at the E-Werk in Cologne in 1991. I was going to gigs on my own even back then. I had only turned 16, but Bro2 was old enough to drive me and pick me up later. He spent the time in between watching a lower league football game. I remember the songs we liked to dance to in the clubs, we sneaked in still under age. I remember all sorts of random songs I liked listening to over the years / decades. Songs written before I was born or when I was just a toddler. Songs from the charts when I was growing up. The first bands I was fangirling over. The bands I liked well enough to see live on tour. Bands who have been disbanded by now. Songs featured on “Grey’s Anatomy”. Songs of my life, basically. 

Set to shuffle the 30 hours (over 450 songs) of music might give some people a whiplash, because my taste over the years has changed as it should have done. Some songs I picked because of the memory associated with them. Some songs – lots of Frank Turner of course – because I can relate so well to them and because they mean the world to me. Some songs just because I liked them at some point and wanted to honour that. But yeah, whiplash going from this

Nanci Griffith in the 1990s

to this

Toten Hosen live in 2018 (Only found live videso of this)

Maybe. What can I say? I’ve got an eclectic taste.

And I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about that.