My (R)evolution, part 1.

That rug is just a metaphor, because I live in a place that isn’t really fit for rugs. In the tropics, we don’t have rugs. Door mats maybe, but no rugs.

Since 2005 I call Little Corn Island my home base. It’s a tiny tropical island off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Turquoise seas, white sandy beaches, waving palm trees, my own little yoga and massage studio set in a lush garden right next to my tiny but super-comfortable home.

Of course, now you all think I’m living the dream. Well, maybe I was. Until April 19 of this year. Now I’m living in what some of you would more likely call a nightmare. A friend of mine described it as “living on the edge”. Whichever way you want to label it, when the country you’re living in as a foreign entrepeneur throws itself into a revolution, you cannot help but feel as if the rug got pulled out from underneath your feet.

From one day to the next the Nicaragua people woke up from peacefully dozing to fiercely demanding that the president and his wife step down. In a month’s time more than 70 people have found their death and hundreds have been injured in riots caused by police violence and looting. Road blocks are disabling proper transport, due to which many regions (amongst which our little island) are cut off from their regular supplies of food and fuel.

 

Living your dream isn't brave.

For the last 10 years, I have been living my dream, by myself, in a strange land far from everything that is (or was) familiar.

People see that and they think they would never be able to do it themselves, so they tell me I’m brave.

But I don’t really deserve a medal. Living your dream isn’t brave.

To me, brave people are those who risk their own lives or freedom for the sake of others. The people who overcome tremendous difficulty in life and can still find a smile in their hearts. The people who suffer deeply, but don’t give up hope.

Those are the brave ones, and I’m not of their calibre.

All I have done is get sacked from a job, pack a bag, and take off travelling, leaving the demands of modern society behind for some adventure and freedom. How brave is that?

So no, living your dream isn’t brave. I’m not brave. It’s that I have been able to let go of most of my fears.

Many of us are full of fears of all shapes and sizes: fear of losing our jobs, partners, money, or health; fear of losing face, of rejection, of abandonment; fear of gaining weight, not being pretty or good enough.

We fear failure in every way.

But when the fears subside, life begins. Continue reading “Living Your Dream isn’t Brave.”

On a sunny Thursday afternoon in June 1999, I was let go from a well-paying career I hadn’t even had for a full year.

I hadn’t seen it coming, so all of a sudden, I found myself at a fork in the road. The intuitive choice I made that same night has had a decisive (and incredibly positive) impact on my life until this day. The craziest thing I ever did.

I bought a one-way ticket to Bombay.

It is a common belief that without education we cannot succeed in life (it’s also a common belief that we have to be successful). It is an unwritten law that we aim high and prepare for the best career. Most of us haven’t found our passion, or what we want to do for the rest of our lives when we’re still in high school. Most of us choose what we’re told we’re good at or what we think will offer us the best opportunities.

So did I.

We study hard, get the best possible degree, and aim for the best-paid job in the field. In our free time, we try to find a partner, and soon, we are looking for a house to buy—to settle down. It’s what our parents hopefully did for us, and they worked hard to provide us with what we needed.

It is the standard box recipe, and most of us buy into it. We don’t even think about other options, and for a long time, we fail to assess if it makes us happy or not. It’s what everybody does, so we should do it too, right?

Remember the theme song from “Weeds”? “Little boxes, on the hillside, little boxes, made of ticky-tacky…”

We grow up learning to think within the box, and as adults, we continue to live in the box and often get quite stuck in it. It’s what we are used to, it feels safe.

Barely eight months into my second corporate job, I became redundant.