The taste stayed somewhere in my memory. Or perhaps just the idea of what it was supposed to taste like. A sweetness unlike any other fruit. That first bite, when the juice fills your mouth. The tiny grains in its flesh, crunching. By the end, only the stem and the seeds remain, barely enough to prove the fruit was ever there.

I took a bite.

It tasted exactly as I remembered. Maybe even better, because it was real. Sweet juice ran down my chin. Each bite made me want another. Bigger. Juicier.

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Every evening at half past seven, the gulls leave the Danube for the night. Before settling down, they circle above the city, waiting for each other so they can fly there together. They gather in the same places every day, as if guided by an invisible map and compass.

I stand at a street corner and look up at the sky. Then I glance down at the people around me. No one notices what’s happening above them. Everyone is looking down at their phones. No one seems to know that the birds don’t like going to sleep alone.

The flock circles high above the city until everyone has arrived. Slowly, the circle unravels, stretches into an inverted V, and disappears into the evening sky. Soon another flock gathers, and the whole ritual starts again. After the third flock leaves, the sky is empty.

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As the sky pales and everything slowly loses its color, the bustle of the street dissolves into a quiet hum.

Children’s voices drift from the distance. A car drives down the street.

The jingling of keys. Slippers on the steps. A door slams shut, and then a small island of silence follows.

A motorcycle speeds by. A baby cries in the building across the street.

The hum of the power lines fades, and once again there’s a brief silence.

In the distance, a large dog barks.

Wings flap in the treetops.

Down on the street, someone calls out to Suza.

The television murmurs from the living room.

It will soon be dark, and the street will come alive again.

The neighborhood children will play guitar, then everyone will start talking at once.

Two elderly women will say goodbye and head off in opposite directions. One of them walks with a slight limp.

Behind me, the beads hanging in the balcony doorway will rattle, followed by the soft rustle of bedsheets.

No sound of sparrows.

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Do you love your job?

It’s a simple question, and there are countless articles trying to answer it. But let me ask it differently. Do you genuinely enjoy what you do every day, or do you spend half your working hours daydreaming about being somewhere else? You might be surprised by how many people quietly choose the second option. So why am I writing about this? Because I spent eighteen years working in advertising agencies.

A few days after graduating from the Academy of Applied Arts, I found my first job. My original plan was simple: spend ten years learning everything I could, work with different clients, gain experience, and then decide what came next. Of course, life had other plans. Especially when you’re making plans in Serbia.

My ten-year plan somehow became an eighteen-year one. Looking back, it was an incredible journey. I never stopped loving design. But somewhere along the way, I realized I no longer loved the environment I was working in. That left me with a difficult question:

What was I willing to sacrifice—my health or the career I still cared about?

There had to be another way. To create meaningful work, you need more than a desk and a computer. You need the right environment. Not just an office, but people who inspire you, a creative process that allows ideas to grow, and enough time for those ideas to mature before they’re judged. Looking back, those last two were often missing. And eventually, I understood where my stress was coming from.

I was constantly working. But I wasn’t creating. Or at least, I wasn’t creating work that felt worth the energy I was investing. Even when I produced something I was genuinely proud of, it sometimes never reached the client. Decisions were made long before the work had a chance to speak for itself.

The salary was good. But there are things money simply can’t buy. The satisfaction of creating something meaningful. The joy of enjoying the process, not just surviving it.

A year ago, I made one of the biggest decisions of my career. I left the agency and started my own design studio. Not because I wanted to stop designing. Quite the opposite. Because I wanted to keep loving design for many years to come. I knew I needed a different way of working—one that valued not only the final result, but also the creative process itself. Looking back, it was the right decision. So let me ask you that question one more time.

Do you love your job?

If the answer is yes, hold on to it. Protect it. If the answer is no, don’t ignore that feeling forever. No salary is worth sacrificing your mental or physical health. Life is too short to spend every Monday morning wishing it were already Friday.

If you’re going to keep telling yourself: “I CAN do it”, make sure you’re saying it about something that still brings you joy.

For me… it’s just another play-day.

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