Why I do what I do...

A new job

Just two weeks ago, I began in a new job. To me, however, this job is not just a job - it's the beginning of the fulfillment of my life purpose.

I will work as an Outreach Officer at the International Organization for Migration in Norway. In practice, it means that I will work with providing on IOM's Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration programme to irregular migrants. It is usually people who sacrificed everything, left behind home and family, and who have applied for asylum status in Norway, but subsequently have their application refused. In this case, these people face impossibly tough choices. IOM provides an Assisted Voluntary Return Programme, which gives the possibility to travel with dignity and humanity, get travel covered as well as some financial support to rebuild lives back home. For most, this "option", is cruel and meaningless - nobody migrated to Europe overcoming the most difficult of journies, to be given the option to "return voluntarily". Legally, however, they are required to return home (leaving Schengen), the alternative to which is often deportation by police. Faced with this tough choice at he programme offers a chance to take control of parts of the uncontrollable.

It is not difficult to find strong opinions on Europe's migration policy, whether it comes to the lack of human policies on saving migrants drowning in the mediterranean, the wall that the continent has built around itself towards the rest of the world, the lack of generosity and humanity amongst citizens of Europe towards people from different cultures and background, or the impossibility to migrate here for most of the world who wishes to do so. I share both an outrage and a strong opinion on this. More importantly, however, I have decided that I will dedicate my life to do something about it. Therefore, much of this blog will start talking a lot about these issues over next few months, years and decades. I hope you will enjoy the ride with me.

How to find your life purpose?

I find it curious to reflect upon how I became so clear that this is what I want to dedicate my life to. I guess Steve Jobs taught us that we can only connect the dots looking backwards, and I know that is the case for me. Here is an extract I wrote on the morning of my very first day at my new job, because I wanted to make sure I entered it with purpose and dedication.

Why I do what I do?

I am the son of a father who migrated to Norway so that my mother and him could build a better life for me once I was born. I still remember growing up being insulted on the bus home from school for being a 'German Nazi pig' - I was 7 years old. I spent my life growing up between cultures and have lived in 6 countries. But at the age of 22, I ended up living on a park benc, cold, along and desperate, after emigrating to Italy in search of a dream. I am a child of Europe, who could overcome all this because I had equal opportunities for education, because I had freedom to grow and fail, and because time and time again a brotherhood of friends, family and strangers supported me and picked me up when I had fallen. I believe in the Europe that empowered me to become who I am.

But this Europe does not believe in migrants who come here in search of a dream. It does not provide freedom at its borders or rights within it. It does not provide opportunities for equality through education and growth for fellow humans. And we have long ago forgotten about providing a brotherhood of man to those who need it and seek it amongst us. This Europe lives against itself, against its own values, against it own dreams.We live in fear.

I want to change the story of migration in Europe because it is what I was meant to do, it is who I am meant to be.This is why I do what I do.

While I can connect the dots going backwards, I also know that from all the experiences and learnings I had in AIESEC, this is the greatest debt I have to the organisation. In particular there is one failproof way to discover your purpose in life. Spend a whole year of your life asking the question to yourself and just sit and think about it. What do I mean?

Delivering a session 50 times...

When I was President of AIESEC International, on every trip I went, and in every conference and interaction I took part in, I delivered a session we named BIG AIESEC. It was an integration of the purpose of AIESEC itself in developing leadership in young people, with what kind of organisation would be able to deliver such youth leadership on a massive scale. In the beginning of the session, I would ask the participants to reflect upon their own world, their city or country, and what were the issues they cared about. I would then ask them to imagine that same world in 50 years from now, which I defined "more or less" as our scope of impact from young adulthood to the day we are old.

On each of the two reflection questions, music would play (typically Beyonce's I was here) and (Some die Young by Laleh). This 10 minutes of reflection may not be much. But when you yourself are delivering it around twice a week for 9 months, it adds up. Each time I would be sitting in the front (waiting for the participants while they were taking notes), and my mind would wander. Gradually I started bringing my notebook with me to the front when delivering the session, because every time there were so many thoughts running through my head. Things I cared about, the world I saw, and the world I dreamed about. Every time I was asking "what will you do with your life" that question reflected back to me. And the notes kept coming.

To me, the dots started connecting. Both as a result of the most purposeful year of my life and because I took time after the year to reflect upon it.

As I said, I just started a new job. But, yeah. It's not really a job. It's the beginning of the fulfillment of my purpose in life.