I’m living the best time of my life right now. I’m nearing the end of my media studies, working as a media entrepreneur, and the future looks bright and open. I don’t yet know exactly where life will take me next, but that’s precisely what feels so good about it at the moment. For the first time in a long while, I feel that I get to build my life into exactly what I want it to be.

After three years in Tampere, I recently moved back to the Helsinki metropolitan area – but this time, to Helsinki itself for the first time. I already got to know Espoo and Kauniainen when I was younger, as I went to school there before moving to Tampere for my higher education. Helsinki, on the other hand, felt like a very foreign place for a long time. I thought the atmosphere here was constantly busy and stressed, and moving to Helsinki was something I hadn’t really even considered. I remember telling my friends time and time again: “There’s nothing that could get me out of Tampere!”

Well, life happened, and I moved to Helsinki in August. Believe it or not, my intuition told me to do it. I’m a firm believer that you should trust your intuition. Sometimes you don’t need to be able to rationally justify everything to yourself – sometimes it’s enough that something simply feels right.

A big part of this change actually began earlier in the year, when I spent three months living with a flatmate in Etu-Töölö alongside my work placement. Within just a couple of weeks, more seemed to happen in Helsinki than had happened in Tampere over several months. I met new people, interesting work opportunities came my way, and it felt like there was always something happening around me. I still don’t know whether it was the magic of Helsinki or simply the fact that I was in exactly the right place in life at the time, but something about the city started to feel like it belonged to me.

I found a lovely home in Sörnäinen, right on the edge of Kallio. It’s 46 square metres, a one-bedroom apartment and, above all, full of light. I feel that I have a good eye for visual details, so I’ve decorated my home entirely myself. There has to be colour! I like my home to feel playful, personal and inspiring. To me, home shouldn’t just feel like a place where you sleep. I want it to be somewhere I enjoy spending time, somewhere that gives me new ideas and somewhere that reflects my personality.

For me, home doesn’t just mean the flat itself. What happens outside the front door is just as important. I’m an active person, and I love being able to live in the middle of everything. I don’t want to spend a large part of my day travelling from one place to another; I want life to be close by. Around my current home, I have fantastic cafés, restaurants, bars, charity shops, great places to go for a run, and all the shops I need for everyday life. I can spontaneously go for a coffee, a walk, lunch or even to the sauna without having to plan my entire day in advance.

That kind of environment suits my current lifestyle perfectly. I do a lot of my work as an entrepreneur on my computer from home, so my apartment serves as my base, but at the same time I want to step outside and be part of the city. For me, the best thing is that home gives me the peace and quiet to focus when I need it, while there’s an endless amount to do whenever I feel like going out. My work is also varied, so no two days necessarily look the same. One day I might be out filming, the next in meetings, and the third spending the entire day at home planning projects.

I’m Estonian by background, and my grandparents live in Tallinn. I visit them often and also take care of work matters in Estonia while I’m there. Living in Helsinki makes that easy too, as you can get to Tallinn by ferry in around two hours. You don’t always realise just how close Estonia actually is. I love that I can build my life in Finland while still maintaining a strong connection with Estonia and my loved ones there.

My life is constantly changing. I’m a 24-year-old single man and a freelance media entrepreneur. Nothing is tying me to one particular place at the moment, and I get to build a life that feels completely like me. That’s why renting also feels like the natural choice for me at this stage. I want to keep my options open and see what life has in store.

I love the fact that my current tenancy only requires me to stay for a minimum of six months. Honestly, I have no idea what my life will look like six months from now. Maybe I’ll still be in Helsinki, or maybe somewhere else. Perhaps work will take me to new places, or I’ll discover another neighbourhood in the city that feels like home. That’s the beauty of this stage of life. I can keep moving forward without having to know everything in advance.

In the future, I’m sure I’ll dream about buying my own home too, but right now I want to live, experiment and discover more about myself through different rented homes. I want to experience different homes, neighbourhoods and ways of living. I don’t want to rush into the next stage simply because it’s what you’re supposedly meant to do.

For now, though, this home in Sörnäinen feels exactly right. It’s a place from which I can build the next chapter of my life. And perhaps the most important thing right now is that I don’t need to know what that next chapter will look like. It’s enough to know that I’m heading in the right direction.