Image by Luc Galoppin on Flickr

 

My (R)evolution, part 7.

There was a time, that in the eyes of most people I was “living the dream”. I always contested that, saying I was just living my life—making a living, dealing with problems—like any other person. The only difference being, that I was doing that on a beautiful little Caribbean island.

I’m not much of an achiever, so I’ve never bothered to “tick off” things from my bucket list. I’ve never had a bucket list to begin with (Living the dream, check. Opening my own yoga studio, check. Starting a blog, check).

Nor have I ever checked my life against Maslow’s pyramid, to see how well I was doing in terms of personal fulfilment and self-realisation.

But the other day that pyramid popped into my viewfinder, and I started thinking about it.

Maslow’s pyramid looks at the different levels of fulfilment in a human life. At the bottom it is about the very basic needs, that have to be fulfilled first before we can start thinking (and worrying) about the next level, and so on. The theory is, that ultimate fulfilment (the top) leads to real happiness.

I have been very happy in the past 13 years that I have been calling this little Nicaraguan island my home. 

Image by tookapic on Pixabay

   My (R)evolution, part 6.

Living the dream ain’t always easy, I tell you. Even in times of peace, there were things in our tropical island life that we’d jokingly complain about. The amount of curious questions we repeatedly have to answer, is one of them. (I dedicated a separate page to these FAQ’s on my website, in case you’re getting curious now too).

One of the questions asked many times is: “Are you here for good?”

“No” has always been my honest and wholehearted answer. “But I have no idea when I will leave.”

Before, when asked what could be a reason for me to leave this little island off the coast of Nicaragua—a country now on the verge of another revolution—I’d would sum up this short list:

Image by bierfritze on Pixabay

  My (R)evolution, part 5.

Since April 19 of this year Nicaragua, the country where I’ve been living for the past 13 years, is in a state of social unrest and political upheaval that it hadn’t seen for several decades.

For a while I was playing ostrich. I didn’t look at the news, even though I knew more or less what was on it. I didn’t talk that much with friends about the situation on the mainland, as if silence could make the problem go away or at least not seem so serious and big. On our little peaceful island, we were hoping for the best, pretending that we could sit this out.

Basically, I was in denial.

Until I heard about the road blocks. Barricades on most highways were seriously blocking all traffic, affecting the transport of all our supplies.

On Monday the news got to our island that next Saturday the freight boat that brings everything we need, from tomatoes to toilet paper, from peppers to propane, would not be coming.

Now that was news I needed to keep up with…