What if choosing challenges we WANT to face is the key to happiness??
What if happiness occurs not from avoiding challenges & obstacles… But choosing ones we WANT to face? The people with the most money are frequently the most unhappy as well as the people who have fewest challenges. So how about we choose to accept challenges as a prerequisite to happiness & then add the ingredients we want?
What’s wrong with that?
On August 6th 1999 Costa Rica changed my life.
If there’s a Holy Ghost (& I think there is, probably just a bit different than what I was taught in Sunday School), then I felt IT that first morning.
The colors were brighter, people were happier & healthier & all kinds of people, both Ticos & expats from all different kinds of socioeconomic status, were quick to smile & laugh. I learned ‘Pura Vida’ is actually a real way of life & not just a tourist tattoo. This level of happiness & acceptance for challenges in life was extremely interesting to me.
Each day from August 6th of 1999 till the day I moved here full time April 1, 2009 I dedicated my time and energy to finding a way to live here & raise my family in Costa Rica.
I watched The Endless Summer 2 every single night to go to sleep & saw the Costa Rica part with Marco Pacheco, Robert, August, Wingnut, Pat, O’Connell, and dedicated my life to pulling off Robert August’s famous quote about “Living in Costa Rica forever, or until I die… Whichever comes first.”
So I worked as hard as I could starting in 1999, and doing well financially until the great crash happened 2008 or so and eliminated everything I had worked for. I lost hope & thought it was all over & was devastated for months about not living in Costa Rica & fell into a strong depression. I felt like a failure, and wish I had spent our money more on luxurious things because investing & living frugally for so many years did not pay off. I depleted my savings and my credit trying to honor bills and had no idea how bad things truly were getting in the world. I was working inside mortgages and lending and real estate and financial services and was prepared for a 25% market downturn or a ‘storm shower’ per se, but I was not prepared for a tsunami. My portfolio dropped 72% in value & was destroyed.
Then the phone rang… It was Erik Antonson from Surfing Nosara starting a Vacation Rental division and the job was mine, but I needed to commit quickly because many people wanted the job. For years, Erik had been trying to get me to come down and work with him and his wife Sarah on both community issue initiatives and find a way to make a living in Nosara, Costa Rica.
But I was trying to make enough money to be the expat who came down to live on his own terms (most of my rental & real estate clients now)… I did not know I was going to end up becoming The Grateful Gringo the hardest way possible, by losing everything and restarting with nothing.
Now that I look back on it, I am grateful because the hard work created who I am today & the relationships I enjoy. If I had moved down here with money, I would have been like so many other folks who enjoy this place but don’t know it at the core, human level. Now I know what it’s actually like to live here, completely poor, everyone doubting you, many people being upset with you because you’re another Gringo & mistakenly thinking you have money when you literally have nothing and are putting it all on the line.
People sometimes don’t understand not every gringo has money. Some of us have very little, but work our asses off just to make it by day to day.
I’m a Grateful Gringo not just for my daily life, filled with surf and adventure and the challenges of competition in a tiny little town that’s extremely popular… I’m a Grateful Gringo because the challenges of making it in Costa Rica have taught me not to avoid problems or think that money can solve your problems…
My current thought process is: Success in life is choosing the problems you want to face, then facing & overcoming them with joy, knowing that the journey is the fun adventure. This being said…
Authenticity is my goal & I want to be clear on my mission: I’m a Grateful Gringo who likes surfing, music & community & sells real estate so I can community, music & surf my entire life & help others enjoy this place like I do
Rich
Each Saturday, Coconut Harrys Surf and Music hosts Board Swap Saturdays at Playa Guiones, Nosara. People can bring boards they just have laying around the house or they could just try something different.
‘Try stuff before you buy stuff’ is the theme. Frequently, we are learning that people have boards laying around that for someone else might be a real treasure and expand their quiver. So instead of dropping a bunch of money on something you might not like, you may as well at least try out the sizes and shapes and get a feel for it. Or just find somebody you can trade direct to. 
For this Board Swap Saturday, Rich takes out of Robert August mini longboard version of the famous What I Ride model and a Storm Equipment Surfboards finless custom finless board. The surf is a little better than we had expected on this day, but it’s by no means epic.
This is an April day with fun Surf and I’m riding an 8‘4“ Robert August What I Ride model so it’s a mini longboard.  there’s no center fin and two side bites are working well turning & it even noserides on this board, believe it or not.
On these waves I’m trying to learn how to generate speed and complete 360s.
wave one was fun, but wave two was definitely more fun after linking up a couple of those turn sections between sections on semi clean but bumpy day.
I’m extremely grateful to be living in Nosara & learning all this different equipment and riding waves whether standing up, on knees, or body surfing.  see you guys out in the water or maybe at Coconut Harry’s Surf & Music Shop. 
Thanks Eq Surf for video & After Surf Band for music
I’m grateful for so many things about life in Nosara… Surf of course #1, then followed by people & the community in general, then perhaps variety of weather, waves & types of people with season adjustments, & there’s more. But music wasn’t in top choices here until November 1st 2023. That’s when I started playing at Alt Fin Co at Outpost in Playa Guiones K section across from Surf Simply & near Beach Dog Cafe & El Campo.
Since then I’m reconnecting with many friendships, clients gathered over the years & just overall enjoying myself and the challenge of it all. My favorite jam sessions are the freestyle ones where someone just names a subject & off we go… However, on this night I was super nervous because my first time playing publicly with Garret “G Love” Dutton who has been a long time friend since about 2010 when he did his first Nosara Benefit show at that time for the Surfing Nosara Foundation to help local schools. Erik Antonson is to thank for starting all of this and to this date we’re all friends & I’m hoping we can get Nosara Acoustic Roots Festival back up & rolling.
Ideally we get G Love, Jack Johnson, Donovan Frankenreiter, Ben Harper type folks together for an ideal kind of festival. Nosara is a model town for the world to see and in protecting it and its people other places may benefit, too.
My music history is 2 years of piano 10 to 12, then picking up a guitar at 22 years old & mainly being self taught with a bit of time in contemporary church bands before moving to Nosara full time in 2009. My most interesting setup up till 2009 was playing upright bass in a bluegrass band called Tin Penny in St. Augustine, Florida. This style of music really caught my attention & formulated my style for future years.
When when Nosara happened, I pretty much dropped music except for Kaiya’s Del Mar Academy talent show in 2011 or so & a couple times at Il Basílico, Harbor Reef (RIP), and here or there with a friend like Josh, Tacu, or Darrin E on percussion.
So mainly it was me fingerpicking in the jungle in between letting my kids beat me up in karate, boxing, Muay Thai, or BJJ & UFC TUF episodes & Gracie Jiu Jitsu lessons as part of their homeschool.
But the kids are old now & I’m pumped to be back into music. Was terrifying getting out in front of people because when you stink in music super visible. At same time, I’m not trying to make any money or be famous. I just want to make interesting music that flows and generally has pretty strong bass lines.
Here’s a peek at the Harmony Hotel’s Recording Studio with Alejandro Hidalgo & special guest Deblois Milledge. Deblois freestyles to Rich’s Django inspired riff & creates a new song call ‘Rodeo’ first attempt. Alejandro holds percussion & also guest appears in The Alejandros alongside Editor EQ Ale who edited this video plus contributed much of the music & sound production.
We had fun making this one & hope you enjoy!
