Six Years Ago We Left Everything To Live on an Island. Here’s Why

Sometimes you need to do what nobody understands

The late TV chef-turned-celebrity, Anthony Bourdain, had a quiz of sorts that he would apply to his friends and acquaintances.

Something like: “If one day an ice cream truck lost control and ran you over while you were crossing the street, while you were agonizing on the pavement, what would you regret?”

According to Bourdain, most people would say, “I regret not taking it easier and enjoying myself more.” But he made it clear that he would never have that kind of regret.

He had taken every opportunity to have fun and have an adventure.

If I would apply that test to myself, I couldn’t answer the same. I haven’t had such a fast-paced life.

I have not lived the crazy life in the New York of the seventies and eighties, nor do I know anything about hallucinogens or cocaine.

I am not a citizen of the world’s capital, nor can I boast of having moved seamlessly from the elite education of the American east coast to the bowels of the culinary universe and from there to stardom as a TV chef.

Tony did all of that.

However, if I’ll say anything under the wheels of that hypothetical truck, it would be that I did have my share of adventures.

At least of what most people would say have been unconventional (sometimes surprising) decisions and by all accounts guided by the pursuit of “something.”

What is that “something”?

Most people who know me never knew or didn’t understand it, and, to be honest, I don’t think I fully understood it for a long time either.

I was acting on instinct.

For example, in March 2015, I took a plane to an island I had never seen before and where I knew no one.

My wife and three children accompanied me, and I intended to start a new life there.

There is a question they asked me hundreds if not thousands of times: “why”?

My friends were puzzled. They didn´t get it.

What was so strange about it? A couple of things.

Moving for no apparent reason

I lived in Argentina, in a beautiful house in a green suburb of the city where I was born.

I was well known in the business community, had a good job, and was successful. My children were happy.

I had already lived, for different reasons, in other cities.

In Quito, when I was a kid because my family moved there.

In Buenos Aires, because it was a career decision.

In Brighton because I went there to study.

But I had never done anything like this before. Now there was no apparent reason.

So why?

At first, I struggled to answer.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know why, but that I didn’t know how to say it clearly.

A non-conformity brewing for a long time prompted me to travel.

It had to do with many things happening in my country, yes, but also with desires, cravings to fly, live somewhere else and change my lifestyle.

Yes, my wife was robbed twice in three years and was living in fear.

And yes, the craziness of local politics also mattered.

But the truth is, even if that never happened, we probably would have left anyway.

Why? Maybe because the ability to live somewhere else (anywhere else) is a good definition of freedom.

“Freedom: the ability to live wherever you want” could be a definition. Not perfect, but not wrong either.

So at the beginning of 2015, we left for Mallorca, a beautiful island in the Mediterranean of which we only had pictures and videos on YouTube, and that today is our home.

The Pursuit of Happiness

That is the title of a 2006 movie starring Will Smith and based on the life of Chris Gardner, a man who fought against poverty for years until achieving success in the financial world.

It refers to a phrase in the U.S. Constitution. It is one of the three natural rights that people have: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Interestingly, the title does not talk about money (the movie is a financial success story) but about happiness.

That is the “something” we are all looking for, all the time, and there are two sides of the same coin: freedom and happiness.

When one is searching and following (intuitively, sometimes) the most appropriate path to find that freedom and happiness, often the decisions can be seen, from the outside, as erratic, inconvenient, or frankly incomprehensible.

At the time, it´s hard to understand. But if you look back and “connect the dots,” as Steve Jobs used to say, the whole path you have traveled makes sense.

Practice what you preach

During these six years in Mallorca, I was doing what I knew I could do: living in the place you like the most, almost always working remotely for companies in other countries.

I always knew that the time had come when people could choose more freely where to live and from where to work. I knew it, and I taught it.

Now, knowing that something is possible in theory is fine. But to be able to experience it in your own life is even better.

I’m not the first one; obviously, I won’t be the last, and I haven’t even been the best at using technology to choose more freely where to live.

But I walked some small part of the path that I think will be the choice for millions of people.

We live at a time when those yearnings for freedom, living in certain places, working in things we like more are on the rise, and we have more tools to fulfill them.

It’s a human flowering like there hasn’t been in centuries.

Being in the middle of this trend, surfing the waves, so to speak, is one of the things I like the most.

A lot of people are also looking for something similar.

We all know that 2020 was a change-it-all year. I think that from now on, we will see changes like we had not imagined, especially in this field.

That is why I decided to share my experiences in this adventure more closely and in real-time.

My project (family and professional) is still ongoing and continues to change. I am starting another stage just now (although without moving ;-)).

I haven’t “arrived” anywhere, and I don’t think I ever will.

Life is all about travel, fortunately.