I Never Waited for the End of the Workday

I Never Waited for the End of the Workday!

"On the freedom to discover one's talents and, at some point, no longer having to distinguish between work and life."

I was born in 1960 in Hilden, near Düsseldorf. I spent most of my childhood outdoors. At the stream, in the forest, on the playing field, rowing on the Rhine, or playing tennis. We had no mobile phones, no computers, and only three television channels. But we had time. And a freedom that seemed entirely natural to us back then.

We had to explore our world for ourselves. We invented games, went on adventures, tried things out, and lost track of time in the process.

Perhaps I experienced something back then whose significance I wouldn't come to understand until many decades later: how wonderful it is to be completely absorbed in what you're doing.

Of course, there was also school.

I attended a humanistic secondary school in Düsseldorf-Benrath, where I encountered a language I initially couldn't manage at all: Latin.

I didn't understand the grammar, and as a result everything felt laborious and incomprehensible to me. Only through diligent vocabulary learning was I able to prevent a failing grade on my report card.

I would have considered it impossible back then that I would one day teach Latin myself and even write two textbooks on the subject.

But life sometimes has a remarkable way of showing us our own possibilities only very late.

My teacher, Dr. Carl Vossen, recognised my linguistic talent long before I had any inkling of it myself. He even told my parents. I had entirely different things on my mind at the time.

It wasn't until around the age of twenty that I truly began to discover my passion for languages. One language led to the next, new encounters opened up new worlds, and at some point I found myself engaged with eleven languages.

What had once been laborious suddenly became easy. Not because the difficulties had disappeared, but because I had found my own way in.

And from this discovery, a pursuit gradually developed that continues to inspire me to this day.

I began teaching languages to other people.

In doing so, I discovered something that came to matter to me even more than the languages themselves: the joy that arises when another person suddenly understands what had previously seemed incomprehensible to them.

When a child who considers themselves ungifted suddenly realises that they are in fact very gifted. When an adult loses their fear of opening their mouth in a foreign language. When uncertainty becomes self-confidence.

Such moments can hardly be weighed against money.

Of course I earn my living through my work. I too have bills to pay, and naturally there are days when not everything comes easily.

Yet at some point I noticed that I lacked something so many people long for every day: the desire for the end of the workday.

I never had to wait for my work to finally be over so that my real life could begin.

My life has long since been happening.

And if I'm asked to describe spontaneously what I feel in it, only one thought comes to mind:

I give wholeheartedly and a great deal — and receive so much back from my students that I can no longer distinguish between leisure and work, and no longer wish to.

That, for me, is a great measure of freedom.

Not the freedom of having nothing to do. But the freedom of being allowed to do something I love.

I sometimes wonder how many people go through life with abilities they haven't yet discovered themselves.

How many believe they are unsuited to something simply because they once tried it in the wrong way. How many spend years in a pursuit that doesn't fulfil them, because at some point they decided that life was simply like that.

And yet we often have no idea what else is still within us.

I certainly didn't know at sixteen.

Perhaps we don't always need to know where our path leads. Perhaps it is sometimes enough to remain curious, to try things out, and to pay attention to what truly brings us joy.

I would not want to advise anyone to give up their profession or turn their previous life upside down. Every person has their obligations, their history, and their own unique possibilities.

But I would like to ask one question:

"What would you like to do if you didn't constantly have to think about whether it's worth it?"

Perhaps the answer to that is more important than we might initially believe.

When I think today of the boy who played at the stream, roamed through the forest, and lost track of time while playing, I recognise something.

Today it is the same joy, the same curiosity, the same delight in discovery.

Only that today I no longer sit by the stream, but sit across from a person who wants to understand a new language.

And sometimes, when I see something suddenly light up in their face, I think:

Really, I'm still playing.

Bernd Kappenberg

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