Social mobility is hard. Very hard – as the person this text is all about knows only too well. If you want to move up the social ladder and overcome the structural challenges of our society, there are a lot of things you have to do.

You have to be hard-working, you have to be eager to learn, you have to be well-organized, you have to – well, you get the idea: you pretty much have to be the very best version of yourself. But in my personal opinion, there are two things you have to do that are the most important:

First, you have to make use of opportunities as they present themselves to you – even if they might not fit perfectly into your “bigger plan”.

Second, you have to take chances, even if the stakes might feel very high. Entering unknown territory always involves some risks, and if you are not willing to take them, you won’t get ahead on your path.

If you don’t have the willpower for these two things, then even the hardest work might not pay off, all the things you have learned might not help you, and even the best organization will not necessarily lead to the desired outcome. It’s as simple as that.

In a nutshell, it was this approach to life that made me prick up my ears when I heard of the “ViSo Projektmonat” organized by the “KGC Sachsen-Anhalt” (Coordination Office for Gender Studies & Equity Saxony-Anhalt), which provided the opportunity to finance small projects for NGOs such as ArbeiterKind.de, for which I have been volunteering for years.

To be completely honest, at the very moment I suggested to our group that I would like to organize some kind of event, I did not even have the slightest idea what kind of event exactly I wanted to organize or how it would all turn out. All I had was some vague idea about some kind of talk. That was it.

But that’s exactly the thing with opportunities. Sometimes you have to leap before you look. Sometimes you have to take a chance and be willing to figure out everything else later. In my opinion, doing something beats doing nothing in most cases.

Anyway, in this particular case, the way forward was really not that hard. A couple of emails and short messages later, I had overcome the biggest obstacles, and the outlines of the event began to appear through the mist. And in all of this, I was especially happy to win over a person who sees a huge part of the world in the same colors as I do: Ramona Wuttig.

The first thing one discovers when dealing with Ramona is that she is not only a real jack-of-all-trades, but also an energy-packed powerhouse. Like me, she acquired her Abitur (the German qualification required for university admission) not at a regular school, but through an alternative educational pathway (via distance learning). After that, she studied sociology and political science at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and earned an additional degree in psychology via distance learning. But as if that weren’t enough, today – alongside everything else she is doing – she is in the process of earning another degree in law. To be honest, I am getting tired just thinking about this mental load.

Before embarking on this educational path, Ramona completed vocational training in nursing. Today she works as a content creator (her Instagram account, klasse.gesellschaft, currently has more than 40k followers!), public speaker and, of course, author – which is how our paths eventually crossed. Because just a couple of weeks ago, Ramona published her first book, from which she would read at our event.

The title of Ramona’s work, Aller Aufstieg ist schwer: Arm, ostdeutsch, Arbeiterkind – die Lüge von der Chancengleichheit, loosely translates as All Social Mobility Is Hard: Being Poor, East German and from a Working-Class Family – The Lie of Equal Opportunity. Shortly after its publication, the book shot straight to sixth place on Germany’s most important bestseller list (the Spiegel bestseller list). It is largely autobiographical, with Ramona vividly describing not only her own educational path but also the many different obstacles she had to overcome both before and after her studies.

As the title of her book suggests, Ramona was born in East Germany into – by German standards – extreme poverty. She grew up with her grandparents and had to fight for even the slightest advancement. For example, she was bullied during her years at school and socially excluded for various reasons, which she speaks about with disarming honesty. Like me, she was also, despite her strong desire to learn, not recommended for a Gymnasium by her teachers.

When I first got hold of a copy of her book, I read it in just a couple of hours. The reason for this was that, on the one hand, of course, the narrative strongly appealed to me for personal reasons. But on the other hand, the book is also written in a very direct and engaging style.

Furthermore, Ramona’s book is also an absolute must-read if you want to better understand the social background of current developments in German politics, especially regarding the success of the AfD in the elections in the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which made international news.

Regarding this last point, it is, of course, of some relevance that we did not organize Ramona’s reading just anywhere in Germany, but in the capital of this very state, where I have been living for almost 15 years now.

But if we really want to understand what her work is all about, what better way than to let Ramona speak for herself for a moment? Here is a translation of the short German description she provided for her reading:

Anyone can achieve anything if they just try hard enough? If only it were that simple. In Germany, social mobility often succeeds not because of, but in spite of, existing structures. In her book, Ramona Wuttig powerfully demonstrates how deeply structural inequality is entrenched and how profoundly growing up in precarious circumstances shapes one’s later life. Her own story begins in rural Thuringia in extreme poverty: without running hot water, marked by post-reunification unemployment and social exclusion. She speaks candidly about the shame that comes with growing up in precarious circumstances and exposes the promise of equal opportunity as an illusion.

On the day of the reading, I picked Ramona up from the train station and headed with her to a café where we met with another member of my team from ArbeiterKind.de. Together, we planned the final details of her reading and my part in it.

The reading itself then fully lived up to our highest expectations. Our venue was well filled with an interested audience who participated actively in the discussions following Ramona’s readings of selected passages from her work. I myself took on the role of moderator, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Throughout all of this, Ramona’s energy became very apparent. She really took her time to respond to each question, drawing on the full breadth of her knowledge, always elevating the discussion – as she does in her book – from her personal experiences to the broader theoretical context of her sociological knowledge. In doing so, she created not only a well-rounded intellectual event, but also many opportunities to connect on a human level.

After the last question was answered and the last book signed, our team from ArbeiterKind.de took Ramona out for dinner, where we had another opportunity to get to know her a bit better personally. What I took away from the combination of these two experiences – being together with her “on stage” (so to speak) as well as engaging in personal conversations – is that she is a thoroughly authentic person. At the café as well as during dinner, she was just as lovingly direct and natural as she was when speaking to a couple of dozen people – and what more positive thing is there to say about a person who seems to be headed towards greater success in life than that she remains perfectly grounded in her own background?

All in all, I very much enjoyed everything about the event, from its very first moment to the very last. An event, I might add, that would not have happened if I had not been willing to just take the chance and see what happened.

And if anyone who reads these lines takes away nothing else but this small lesson, you can consider me happy: For most good things in life to happen, you need to make use of opportunities and be willing to take chances – but this is especially true if you want to move up the social ladder and overcome the structural challenges Ramona has had to battle her entire life.