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When I was 23, I loved my life.

At 23, I was living with Rada for a few months already. This is when I tasted, for the first time after leaving my parents’ house, the feeling of ‘home’.

At 23 my friends were great and many, making me the most rewarded man in the world. Some were in business with me, some close, some very far. Some were just good people and always there. With some I wasn’t spending much time, but when we met it seemed like we’ve never been apart.

When I was 23, my parents were growing old. They started caressing themselves with names like ‘old man’ and ‘old woman’. Their gray hair was telling me ‘it’s your turn now to make something with your life’.

At 23, after never having a close relationship with my brother, we started coming more to one another. Going out in the world, with our own life in the hands, must have made us count more on each other.

At 23, I hardly had money in my pocket. All I had was going on my rent, my food and on my small investments in my business. At 23, I was just starting Foreground, together with my friends. We had nothing back then, joy was our only capital.

At 23, in an enthusiastic group, I was founding JCI in Cluj, with the vision of connecting all the young professionals in the city and of giving them the chance to know other people, to improve themselves and their businesses and, by this, to make the changes happen faster.

When I was 23, a good friend of mine got to China. In the same time, I started my Mandarin lessons. This way we were preparing something ‘big’, as we called it. A trade business.

When I was 23, I knew that what I want is my actions to count. I knew that I can do nothing myself and that many people share my dreams. And I knew that, when you put people together, everything will happen.

At 23 I was doing my best. And my best was to wake up early in the morning and be good to people all day. My best was to work my days off, for the single dream of owning my own life and doing good by this. On the first morning at 23, I was given a business case as a present. I still have it now, I carry years and my story inside.

And at 23, at 12:00 sharp, someone knocked at my door. At the door I found a cement sack. 50 kilos of cement in a sack, with the dedication for the foundation of Foreground. In the dark of the stairway there was a song playing. Tabaco y chanel, the song I played in my last minutes in AIESEC, was with me once more. More than 20 people came in the light and entered my room, the first second when I turned 23. Never more surprised.

20 people. With their young looks, their image in my room will always boost by love of life and my energy. It will always shed a tear in my soul and put a smile on my face. Cause I knew that when you love them with all your heart, people will love you back. Joy is the only meaning, I thought, and the only purpose.

‘Joy be the consequence’, this is how I felt when I was 23.