Hi Stranger!

My name is Katarina Milivojević - typical Slavic name, right?

I was born on 13th September, at 13:45, with number 13 in a hospital. Sounds scary?

I'm a freelancer and traveller from Belgrade, the city where you come for clubbing, eating, and making good friends. No, we are not killing people. Usually.

Here is how I look by the way - this is my latest selfie that I consider successful!!

This picture is from Koh Phangan, a Thai island where I'm enjoying myself these days, spending time, and working. Sounds like a perfect life? It probably is.

Anyways, this is not a usual fluffy introduction. I really want to get personal. So, sit comfortably, roll a joint (just kidding!), and get ready. Thanks.

CHILDHOOD, STUDYING, AND DREAMS

I was born in an average family in the crisis of the early 90s in Serbia, and my parents divorced just a few years after that. Everything was pretty chaotic, we also had a war in 1999, life was not convenient, although I had very joyful and creative childhood. Mine was to study hard to prepare for the life. My granny had enough free time and a real desire to teach me everything she could, and I am very thankful for her commitment to make me a future well-educated and independent, well-mannered woman. When I was already 3, I could recite around 50 songs. Moreover, when I was 7, I started writing my first novel (which I never finished). I've said enough.

So, this is that future well-educated and independent, well-mannered woman.

I don't want to say that I was only studying, although sometimes I feel like that. I've also been playing the piano since I was 8, and around my early teenage years it got pretty hardcore and I was dreaming about becoming a pianist, or at least a piano teacher, ready to fully commit my life to music. (Un)thankfully to my family and my piano teacher, who believed that I should do something more profitable, I stopped going to the music school at age 17, and focused more on exploring my other passions for 'real' things. And I was passionate about everything - languages, literature, informatics, medicine, chemistry, business, etc, etc. I could never decide what is best to do for me. Now it is not much different.

So, the first 23-24 years of my life I mostly spent studying, being a real geek and overachiever, all of that until I finally achieved a degree in Business Psychology with best grades and a serious burnout. It was not about psychology at all! - it's about belonging to the system and aiming to gain rewards from that system, while being totally ignorant of other ways of exploring, learning, and expressing what you know, or don't know. Anyways, after that I decided to play hard, and to do only what I really want to do - not what is 'best', or 'normal', or 'usual'.

PLAYING HARD, FEELING FREE. AND FEELING RESPONSIBLE

A month before I turned 24 I started changing everything. I spent the whole month in Germany, using a scholarship I got for improving my German language. First time away from home for so long, I got totally new ideas about my life, and felt encouraged to make them a reality. Since then I destroyed all the basic constructs I had in my mind, and started building totally new, more real ones.

I changed many of my friends, and started building a larger circle of people around me. I ended my last one in the series of 1.5 years long relationships, and decided to stop chasing long-term relationships, and to start exploring more real and honest ones. First time I enjoyed being single. I stopped believing in formal education, in those 'good and secure' company jobs, and decided to never work for any company since it's just not for me. I started freelancing online, doing many different projects mostly in writing and quantitative research. I started living by myself, and totally depending only and exclusively on myself. I learned how to drive a car, how to swim, and probably something else. And I started travelling by myself, which is in Serbia as rare as hen's teeth!

This is one of the pictures from my first solo trip to Israel.

(Dead Sea is NOT the only sea where I can swim! :D)

What I have done so far regarding my career is well-documented on my LinkedIn profile. Do have a look. https://www.linkedin.com/in/katmiliv/

'YEA, I GOT IT ALL. SO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE, KATARINA?!'

Well, writing for me feels like being a kid in a big room full of toys and candies! Also, after my friends showed me Steemit, I realized this is a great place to share content I am about to write.

Besides becoming famous (just kidding), my purpose here is to write about things and ideas I feel are worth sharing, and for which I believe can help someone get some new insights, and change their perspective. I will write about psychological topics, about freelancing, and travelling, all from my own unique point of view, not as a psychologist, but as just an explorer of this weird and amazing world. I want to share real experiences and emotions, and hopefully encourage others to share theirs as well, as I believe being open and expressing yourself is an important part of living a meaningful and fulfilling life.