As I write this, I’m, fittingly, on in-flight wifi at 35 000 feet, somewhere above Central America. I’m on my way home from Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.
While I believe that there are transformative experiences in our lives — medical school for one in mine, residency training for another — I’ve never quite bought into the Eat, Pray, Love-type promises of transformation and enlightenment through travel, or worse, yoga retreats. I believe that travel is important in so many ways — eye opening, educational, experimental — but somehow I’ve never warmed to the idea of six months traipsing through Thai hostels in unwashed dreadlocks and batik pants. No judgment — this may do it for some, and is likely, immense fun, but it’s not for me.
I took advantage of February flight sales and booked a ten day trip to Costa Rica. I went into the trip hoping for some sun, some sloth sightings, maybe some surfing. I didn’t expect to find much more.
As I reflect this evening, flying home through the setting sun, I’m surprised to realize that Costa Rica, quietly, without my noticing, changed me — for the better.
Santa Teresa is an interesting place. It feels like it’s at the ends of the earth, buried down at the very southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula and accessible only by five hours of horrible, often impassable, dirt roads from Liberia (the drive is a bit more manageable if you book an expensive puddle hopper to Tambor). On the surface, it’s an unassuming surface town. Dig a little bit deeper, and you’ll find that it’s cosmopolitan, jam packed with Instagram-worthy avocado toast at Argentine or Israeli-run cafes and restaurants. Dig a little deeper still, and you’ll discover it’s no accident that every single person on the beach is the picture of physical perfection. No one wears a hat, no one wears a cover up, no one seems to need to carry keys, a water bottle, or a beach bag. It’s as if they’ve simply been plopped on the beach, tanned and toned, without a care in the world. The religion is surfing, with a side of yoga. Santa Teresa is one of the world’s Blue Zones — five places where inhabitants have above average life expectancy. It’s a hive of activity for under cover ecoconscious models and celebs. Gisele and Tom — as in the Bundchen-Brady’s — happened to be there while I was.
A lot of people, either didn’t work, or didn’t work conventional jobs. I met a corporate lawyer from Detroit who gave up his law practice to run a noodle shop, a Californian waitress who had given up her accounting job at Deloitte to work remotely (while waitressing for some extra cash), a German couple who purchased a property on a remote beach and turned it into a lovely beachside restaurant, and countless Airbnb proprietors who seemed to have a good thing going.
Every morning, I would walk at the beach, watching the steady stream of model-slim glamorous women walking either alone, or with dogs and babies in tow. People in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties would be sipping green juices at cafes, indulging in a little ocean side yoga, or surfing all day. For the lucky few, there is no AM rush hour, no 9-5, no daily grind.
I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize it, but, luckily, I did. Santa Teresa opened up my mind, spinning my perspective and showing me possibilities I had never dared to imagine. I met people who were young and living their lives to the fullest, because they had attained financial independence early, or were smart enough to have their money working for them rather than grinding away on the hamster wheel, and were bold enough to make the choice to jump off the wheel and chose an alternate path.
For the first time, I presumed to imagine a life other than the standard social prescription (work 9-5 for 50 weeks multiplied by 50-odd years before hanging it up at 70 to ‘retire.’). I think I had been so indoctrinated in the belief that this is the way, the only way, that I hadn’t dared to dream of other possibilities. Is it presumptious to think of saving one million, or ten million, and achieving financial independence by age 35? Is it presumptuous to think about retiring at 40? Is it indulgent to want a life of freedom, and time with family, or dogs? To want to be untied from a job, a place, a mortgage payment? Sure, it is. But, why not me? Or, why not you?
I’m returning home, invigorated, with a fresh purpose, and aggressive, optimistic goals … I want to have 1 million saved by age 35. I want to retire by age 40. I want to be able to spend time with my dog, my family, my friends now — not at 65 or 70 when none of us know what the future holds. I want to jump off the wheel and live a life of freedom and possibility now … not chained to the wheel, servicing debt, till the day I die.
Anything is possible, if only we give ourselves permission to imagine it.
The Buddha Online 