Zavodila: A Person Who Frequently Starts Up Things - Russian
You can do anything, but you can't do it all.
One of our neighbors has been living in the same building with us for a long time. He worked as a sales manager for a very big company; thus, he is highly talkative and always has interesting stories that are well received.
This sympathetic neighbor has another trait. Almost every few weeks, he offers a new idea. Sometimes he wants to start a new business, other times he offers us to sell our flat and buy a piece of land on which we can build our own village together or moving to another country.
At first, me and my husband would listen with interest and then go seek land or do research for the business idea, and it was fun, but after a while, it became evident that almost none of these ideas came to reality. So, once we realized the truth, we continued to listen to this friendly and sympathetic neighbor's stories as entertaining fairy tales. Very few of his ideas came to life.
I'm not sure if this applies to everyone, but there are a lot of people like this in my life. Everyone has new business ideas or wants to create new lifestyles. And they can make only some of them real.
There is a word in Russian that describes these folks.
Zavodila.
It is a label given to people who frequently start something new and can easily persuade those around them to join them. Needless to say, it is a word that every language requires.
We tend to make more solid changes in our lives after the COVID pandemic. We have had to face the impermanence of life and the scarcity of time we have left to live. This has led us to do things we would not have dared before. People are now more and more willing and ready to build new lives since they have the courage to realize them.
Zavodila is neither a positive nor a negative definition, yet I find it rather encouraging. I think of my 13-year-old son, whose future career changes every week. His head is filled with thousands of ideas, ranging from acting to architecture, that he is naturally sure he can realize. That's what I miss most about being young. A mind overflowing of ideas with no need to impose boundaries, and living in a colorful atmosphere of recklessness and courage.
Whether Zavodila people are realists or dreamers, I think the most beautiful and remarkable thing about them is that they haven't left behind, as most of us do, the traits of not thinking about the impossible and having courage that we all have when we are young.
Their imagination and courage have stood the test of time and experience.
Looking through this perspective, today's entrepreneurs are zavodilas. There have never been so many entrepreneurs in any period of history, but there has never been a period that has made entrepreneurship so easy. As of 2023, there are over 594 million entrepreneurs worldwide, which is roughly 7.4% of the global population.
Apparently, zavodilas do good work.
We are most likely living at a time when the world provides the widest opportunities for mankind to realize their desires. It has never been easier to get knowledge and interact with others.
On the other hand, as the number of possibilities increases and the spectrum of lifestyles we can choose expands, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the right choice among them. We either become butterflies, attempting to take a bite out of every existence, or we remain still, petrified by dread of making a choice.
A sentence I saw recently keeps coming back to my mind.
"You can do anything, but you can't do it all."
I wish you a week of starting delightful things.
— Gulsun