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
