Waking up old

… and dealing with it.

One day you will wake up and realise that you have already lived close to 75 to 80 percent of your statistical life, and you, as Frank Sinatra sings, soon are facing the final curtain. What have you accomplished? What will be your legacy? And who actually cares?

Let me introduce myself. Today I am a standup comedian with Europe as my stage, but as most of you I have done a lot other things so far in my life.

In the late 1990-ies I was active in working against child abuse. I did receive some international recognition, and there even was a thank you page on internet where among others I was mentioned along with people like Ozzy Osbourne. The reaction among my friends wasn’t “good job!”. Instead there was a “Well, you’re not really at the same level as Ozzy, are you?”

In the early 2000-s I worked as communications officer and Press Secretary at our Parliament, and I have worked with similar tasks at one of the leading medical universities in Europe. Again, not “Wow, what an interesting career”, but more “OK, so you couldn’t keep a job then?”

I have also published four novels. Yeyy! Two of them are published as “print on demand” by a local printer. Comment of course, not “Oh, how cool. You’ve published a book!”, but instead “Oh, but they aren’t really real books then.” The other two…