I’ve had some time to think lately. In one of the evenings back in Rotterdam as me and Kiks were walking back home, Kiks spoke about his experience. He gave me a different perspective of my life, of me and AIESEC.

I’ve been in AIESEC for six years, six years of my life. I was struggling so hard to make a difference, to leave a mark of my passage. In the end my efforts seemed so fruitless, witnessing all my work, everything I created being erased. Becoming nothing. Dust. For a while I was so very angry with myself, with the others. I realized that my time was gone and that right now there was so little I could do, to fix things.

What I didn’t get is that it didn’t matter … what guarantee do I have that AIESEC Sibiu will still be here in 5 years? Or that AIESEC as an organization will still be around in 50 years? All that hard work, all these efforts and sacrifice of generations simply won’t matter.

I was looking for my mark in the wrong place, what I left behind isn’t in that small office, in these files or in those computers. The marks I left behind are here (head) and here (heart) … they’re in my development and in the journey of discovering and reinventing myself, in the moments I cherish, in the people I guided and developed, in the lives I changed. These last forever and these drive change. That’s the reason why I was there.

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is to never die.”

The Lion.^[1]

1. The song to this post is: Snow Patrol – Chocolate. Open “Lion’s Radio” and scroll down to listen to it. [»]