About Me — Ysa K.
Here’s a bit about Dutch, tall, cheese-loving me.
My Medium name is only half of my real name. I used my full name for a few months but freaked out every time I imagined someone I know finding my little nook on the Internet, so I carefully cut it in half.
I’ve been wondering why the thought that I could be found is so daunting to me. I don’t write about illegal things, nor do I trash talk about anyone in these stories. I have nothing to hide.
But I do like to get personal. I regularly dump the contents of my brain on these pages like a container of paint being dumped on a canvas. I never plan the outcome with great precision, and no two pieces are ever the same.
I’ve learned to start loving imperfection because I know anything else is unattainable. I know I shouldn’t start sentences with ‘And’ and ‘But’ but I still do so anyway.
Sometimes I find inspiration and run with the momentum for months. Sometimes my creative spirit goes quiet. It can feel like a dried-up oasis, only to be revived when the Universe decides to dump a tropical storm on it. You’ll never see me making promises along the lines of ‘’1 article per week’’ or even ‘’1 article per month’’. Some months I’ll write 0, some months I’ll write 15 — a direct reflection of the state of my creative oasis.
I like trying new things, particularly new creative self-expression. I love picking up new instruments, taking up new art styles or finding new hobbies or topics to rabbit-hole into. I love the not knowing, the awe of looking at the top of a mountain-sized project and thinking ‘’Wow, it’s gonna be so cool when I get to that top’’. I love exploring how to climb the mountain. Sometimes, when I’m climbing the mountain, I realize it’s not exactly what I had expected, or the viewpoint enables me to spot a better mountain. I’ll descent, change course and start a new climb.
It’s not a perfect system but I love it nonetheless. It allows me to try new things and frees me from the pressure to finish things I don’t necessarily want to finish.
Here are some more things about me:
- I love passion. I think passion may be one of my biggest passions. I live for those moments when I ask someone about one of their passions (especially if it’s a bit of a strange one), their eyes light up, their body language changes, and they go on and on about their thing. I could listen to them for hours.
- I’m always the youngest in every setting — work, friends, course groups— as I naturally gravitate towards older people. I’d definitely consider myself an old soul.
- I’m usually fascinated by the quiet person in the room and often wonder about what’s going on inside of them.
- I currently work as a Strategy Manager at a tech company. I like it but I’m missing a sense of purpose, which is a big must for me. I have a strong feeling that I want to make an impact on people’s personal lives so I’m currently training to become a hypnotherapist on the side.
- I’m a highly sensitive person. My noise-canceling headphones are one of the best investments I’ve ever made.
- I am a sucker for new self-help or biohacking concepts.
- I love cheese. And bread. And beer. It broke my heart when I learned I’m gluten-intolerant a few months ago.
- I love authentic and truly genuine people and I need to befriend more of those.
- I love digging into spirituality. I love learning all about the Universe, manifestation, energy work, and consciousness and the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.
- I care too much about what other people think of me (especially irrelevant people, for some reason).
- Another one of my biggest passion is music. I play guitar, piano, ukulele (and had a brief moment of harmonica and saxophone) and mostly listen to Rock, Soul, Blues, 60s, 70s, 80s, RnB, Neo Soul and Jazz. Pretty much love everything except for Reggaeton. Oh, and I sing an awful lot.
- I love spending time on personal finances, investing, and keeping up with the stock and crypto market.
- I love spending time alone. I love spending time with loved ones even more.
- I’m an INFP within the Myers-Briggs personality types, meaning I’m an introvert. However, I’ve done the test multiple times throughout the years and I tend to fluctuate between extrovert and introvert, depending on the time in my life.
- I think simple kindness is the single most valuable personality trait there is.
- I tend to prefer watching a movie I’ve already seen over watching a new movie. I don’t know why. I think it has to do with the fact that I find movies a big time-commitment (says the girl who has no problem binging an entire season of a Netflix show in one sitting) and I like knowing that I’m going to like it to avoid wasting time.
- I keep a self-knowledge wiki in Notion. It’s geekier than you can imagine. It’s where I keep track of my vision, my yearly goals, my monthly goals, my bucketlist, my list of things I want to learn, a list of passions, a list of mental barriers I need to break, a list of big accomplishments, scenarios I’m manifesting, business ideas, song ideas, blog ideas, and more. Getting access to this is the closest thing there is to getting access to my psyche.
- I am 100% a dog person and I honestly struggle to understand how anyone could not be a dog person.
The thing with telling people about yourself is that it’s not a completely unfiltered reflection. You are biased, and you’ll always have a skewed perception of yourself. I’ve tried my best to introduce myself with random excerpts from my mind and soul, but I think the best way to get to know me is to get to know my way of seeing the world.
That, my friends, is why I write. I love to reflect on how I view the world around. That’s really it. I’ve been doing all that thinking anyway, and since a few months, I’ve been transmuting those thoughts into stories.
Here are a few of my favorite stories (not necessarily best viewed):
Happiness & Personal Development
Personal Essays & Culture
I always find it valuable to read more about the authors I love, and so I hope you enjoyed gaining some context to the person behind the words. One of the things I love most about Medium is the opportunity to connect with others, so please don’t hesitate to say hello!
