On Monday I was supposed to receive a medal. It’s one of those traditions the purpose of which I don’t understand: you get one after twenty years as a civil servant. But it isn’t merit based – everyone gets one. All you have to do is stick with it two decades. That made me think.

I never really made a considered career choice. I got very lucky in that my coming of age corresponded with Sweden’s joining the EC, as it was then. My training made me a good candidate for the job of interpreter, and my knack for languages ensured that I made it through a training programme many failed.

After that a job was guaranteed, and so I took it, because it was interesting and well paid, and my then-girlfriend-later-to-become-mother-of-my-children-and-ex-wife was also offered one, we moved in together, and the rest is history.

Only…

Twenty years on, interpreting isn’t interesting any more, as there are no new challenges, only variations on well-known ones. Happily, I’ve been able to do other things for the last couple of years – working as a journalist, writing speeches and scripts for commercials – but now that’s coming to an end.

And so the question arises: do I really want to be nothing else but an interpreter for another twenty years? The answer is obviously no, but then the real question is, what do I want to do instead?

Write. Be creative. Travel. Experience. How best to combine these things? Well, being a blogger is one good way of doing it, obviously, but it doesn’t pay – for me, at least. They say to have three hobbies: one to keep you in the money, one to keep you fit, and one to keep you creative, but I’d like to combine the three, if possible. The Japanese concept of Ikigai is a better model: the point where what you love, what you’re good at, what you can make money doing and what the world needs intersect, that’s where you should strive to be, because that’s your ikigai, literally your reason for being.

So what’s my reason for being?