EN-My previous lives

«I die daily» says Paul to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:31). And I live everyday a new life, a new opportunity, a new experience. Considering that I am some 52 years old, I could say that I have lived more than 18.000 lives. But this is not true as I started being aware of life when I was two or three years old. And then some days are so similar that I could not say that my lives can be counted by the thousands. Rather by the dozens.

Of course I was a boy, a pupil and a student. Sometimes I still feel a student, like Socrates, who became wiser each day he became older. I was also a boy-scout, a sea-scout and a cub-scout chief. Then yes I worked briefly in an electronics lab, in a pharmacy lab and in my father's restaurant. How many lives is this? Add my serving in the construction company of my uncle and as an assistant painter and you get the picture of my lives before graduating from University.

Then I was a soldier and a military interpreter and a staff member at the Army General Staff. I was a private professor of Physics and a translator of scientific and technical texts in the Encyclopaedia Papyros-Larousse-Britannica. At the same time I was a journalist for the Epikaira, the 4Wheels (4Τροχοί) and the Flight (Πτήση) magazines. All these make a lot of lives, each with its own rich experiences and difficulties and daily «deaths» and daily jubilations.

And then I came over to Brussels and was a translator once more but also an official and a public servant. I moved to become a computer specialist and taught some computers to handle Greek characters, then I became a database manager and teacher and presenter and specificator. And a project leader and simplificator on top of all these. After moving to my new duties as an information officer I also became manager of people and communicator and producer of newsletters and publications and videos and web sites.

At the same time I was a husband and a father and a Christian and church-goer. And I was a builder of a house which implies being an accountant and a banker and a specialist in 1001 things pertaining to heating and plumbing and electricity and tiles and bricks and insulation and double glazing and paints and wooden floor-coverings.

Finally, I became project leader and proposer of legislation and project evaluator and meeting chairman and consensus builder and above all a dreamer of a better European Union closer to its citizens and dealing with human suffering and risks and disasters. At the same time I had my share of bullying which led to a nice burn-out and a depression and made me go through a very interesting life as a psychoanalytic «subject» and a recipient of a wonder drug called Prozac. And so finally I decided that for my remaining lives I would rather become a full time translator and writer and husband and father again, well and a bιt of a blogger and poet and teaser.

How many lives, how many happy and bad moments and worries and jubilations ? Well why count them? I have only to live them and take strength from the nice moments and teachings from the bad. Life is above all a very short enterprise to spoil it with wondering and stress. Isn't it ?