Back in 2013, after I left school (and a brief stint at trying to start a company), I decided to join a small web development agency in Mauritius.

The office was located on the west coast which meant I had to drive for about 1.5 hours every day in one direction (roughly 3 hours of commute per day) to get there on time. It also meant I had to leave home by 06:00 to avoid traffic jams.

At the end of the month, I would get paid €714. That was considered to be a higher than average starting salary for a fresh graduate in 2013 (probably, still is) and I decided to stick with it even though I hated the commute everyday. After a working day, I would be so tired that I would only come home to sleep on time for waking up at 05:00 the next day again.

If someone mentioned to me then that I would have the opportunity to move to Europe to earn a living, I'm not sure I would have believed it even though I would have done anything to make that happen. Moving out of Mauritius was not going to be easy and the only possible way for that to happen (for me) was to get sponsored by a European company. Back then, this was almost an impossible task.

For a long time, I believed that getting out of Mauritius and working as a developer would be the only thing that would make me happy. Fast forward to now: I've been living and working in Germany since 2019 and believe it or not I still struggle with being happy even if I have all the things I have always wanted to have.

Now, I believe that the only thing that stands in the way of my happiness is financial freedom. So, the cycle continues.