Story starts here
I grew up in a rural area in Bulgaria in the ’90s. The Eastern Socialist bloc has just collapsed and people in my country experienced a terrible economic crisis. It got so bad that at some point salaries dropped as low as $5 per month.
As a child, I didn’t really notice all of that. My life was pretty chill. I didn’t attend kindergarten, so every day in my early childhood went exactly as I pleased. I worked on my own “projects” whenever I wanted. I fondly remember creating my very own snail farm.
Time well spent.
It was also part of my responsibility growing up to take care of the chickens, ducks, and my dog. All this freedom in my early childhood kept me from being conditioned to follow ridiculous rules and laid the foundation for me to start working for myself later on.
Later childhood and teen years were mostly uneventful. I was going to school and in my free time fishing, playing football, or reading. When I graduated school was when I found out that I was…
Totally unprepared for work-life.
I didn’t have any skills.
I didn’t have any relevant experience.
I didn’t have any confidence, or any idea of what I wanted to do with my life.
That’s how I ended up going to the UK to work laboring jobs on farms. At that point, I didn’t speak any English.
I started out picking peas, and later when the season finished I would move to another part of the UK to pick strawberries. It was a terrible time for me.
I was working long hours in the rain and mud for low wages. I didn’t know any better.
When I went back home to visit for Christmas I started asking questions.
“Is this really all there is?”
“Is this how my life is going to go forever?”
“How do I get out of this loop before it’s too late?”
I couldn’t imagine working these jobs for the rest of my life.
That’s when I made a decision.