Even in Paradise There’s Cockroaches

Please follow and like us:

Last August, when my husband and I landed in Costa Rica, our goal was to work remotely for the month. Being able to live and work from anywhere has been a long-time dream of mine, and the driving force of becoming an entrepreneur.

In the past few years alone I’ve been able to work remotely from places like Maui, Spain, Morocco, and the sleepy town in Connecticut where my family still lives.

Being able to stay a month in a tropical paradise, simultaneously serving my clients, has been my vision for quite a long time. I love having a choice to spend my morning time or sunset hours surfing.

But our month in Costa Rica, although beautiful and magical in some ways, was full of many more stressful moments and disappointments than surprises and joys.

We arrived hopeful to our Airbnb but we quickly realized we didn’t have sufficient WiFi (even though we requested that it be strong enough for our work and were assured it was). The strongest signal was outside the home.

This would’ve been quite romantic—to work in the middle of the jungle—if it wasn’t for being bitten alive by mosquitoes, and having our calls interrupted by howling monkeys.

No room at the inn

So I spent our first week trying to find an office space to rent. Apparently, there’s only one space for rent in the entire town. It took multiple emails and walking into random real estate offices to find it.

Even when we settled into our air-conditioned office, the Internet connection was still slow and spotty with the occasional random electrical outage. Apparently, such outages are common in this region.

I spent the first half of the month in Costa Rica with a constant, underlying feeling of rage and anger. Even though the water was warm, the surf perfect and the sunsets glorious, I found myself in a constant state of frustration that the basics I was used to were not available in this country.

What kind of response is that?

I’m the first to say that this response is one of obvious privilege. Knowing that, I struggled with two parts of myself.

One part knew I should be grateful for having the ability to work remotely, and with access to such an amazing experience. Another part of me was mourning the stability and comfort of my home office in San Francisco.

This isn’t the first time one of my big dreams turned out to be not as exciting in reality. There’s a whole other blog post I could write about my cute baby blue Mini Cooper. That ‘dream car’ sucked thousands of dollars out of my bank account, and I was forced to sell it a year later.

So what happens when your dream, once accomplished, turns out to be not the way you had envisioned it?

The lesson is there, somewhere

The pessimist may say, “Why even bother pursuing your dreams if they don’t turn out the way you wanted?”

If you’ve been reading my blogs you know I don’t have cocktails with pessimists. As an advocate for the abundance mindset, I say that what we do is we keep dreaming and we learn from all of our dreams. We learn from dreams we may never achieve.

We also learn from dreams that we do achieve, but which don’t give us all the joy we anticipated. Of course, some dreams we achieve do give us the joy we are looking for.

The point is that there’s lessons in every action we take. I’ve been learning valuable lessons from that month in Costa Rica.

First, the idea of being a nomad, living and working on a tropical island, is actually not something I want, even though I thought I did. Now that I’ve had the experience, I’ve learned a lesson that guides me toward a greater truth. I’m looking forward to building a stable and grounded home base with my husband in the U.S. I’m not as interested in a life of constant jet setting and spending every other month in a different location.

I realize many entrepreneurs think they need to have it all planned out before taking action. That they need to know everything about themselves and their direction before making moves.

My experience in Costa Rica is evidence that I discover myself and my needs through action. I never know how my dreams are going to end up. However, it is in the pursuit of those dreams that I get to meet myself.

What I’ve found

I have found my “dream apartment,” “dream man,” and “dream job,” which turned out to be less-than-dreamy in the end—like mice infestations, heartbreak woes, and feeling stuck in an unfulfilling job.

But I don’t regret any of those actions or experiences. All of those dreams propelled me into action and forward movement. Some dreams provided a great sense of accomplishment when I met certain goals.  Other dreams turned into valuable lessons that helped me create new and better-aligned goals.

Someone once told me that “even in paradise there’s cockroaches” (and in Costa Rica there’s really big flying kamikaze ones that attack your head).

Each grand experience will still have setbacks, and each awful experience will still have silver linings. I get to choose what I focus on.

Choose a new mindset

During my first two weeks in Costa Rica, I focused on everything that wasn’t working. I gave myself frustration and misery. I even got sick with a bad cold and ear infection, and I can’t deny the contribution of the internal stress I created for myself.

Seeing the impact that my mind was having on my body forced me into a mindset shift. I spent the last two weeks in Costa Rica increasing my gratitude practice: saying thank you to the sun as it set, celebrating the fun moments, and stepping into my joy by surfing waves or riding horses on the beach.

I chose to focus on the positive and did my best to deal with the setbacks. Because that is all you can do with the circumstances you can’t change: you can only control who you are in the face of them.

I chose joy, gratitude, and humor.

Don’t diminish the expectations of your dreams or stop pursuing them. In fact, dream big, pursue your goals with reckless abandon and … be willing to deal with the cockroaches.

In the end, you’ll have a great story to weave into your life experience—one that will strengthen your message and entrepreneurial work in the world.