On Coming Home

At the end of last year, I embarked on a journey to cleanse my soul, body and mind, in order to better understand which path I should take after finishing college. I fasted for five days, camping on an island near Vancouver. I didn’t take books, cell phones, or anything that could distract me. It was me and the incredible nature around me. I had plenty of time to reflect, my mind clear and open to everything that emerged. One of the conclusions I got to was that I was not happy and something had to change.

For the past six years I have lived alone in the same apartment. During that time, I did what was expected of me, studied, worked, had incredible experiences, but always feeling confined to social expectations. In fact, if I look at my life so far, I realize that from a certain age on, my life has become a constant search for something in the future, a constant expectation for something to come. In elementary school I wanted to get to high school, in high school I wanted to get to college, in college wanted to graduate and get to work. Today, I realize that this inability to be present, that in the end is all there is (the past was the present when it happened and the future will be the present when it happens), it is an epidemic resulting from our society of consumption. As a child we are taught to want more and more, we are never satisfied with what we have, always comparing ourselves with those who have something better. There is nothing wrong with progress, improvement, but there is a healthy way to want to improve without letting this upset us about our current situation. Anyway, this is a subject for another text.

After graduating from college, I got a job in less than a month after returning from my vacation in Brazil. It was a job that paid well, at the college where I studied the first two years of my degree and that counted for the immigration process. I did not think twice, I accepted it and I started working in September of last year. It was a typical office job, Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm, seven hours sitting in front of a computer and one hour lunch. I was happy to have my own money, to have afternoons and weekends free and worry free, but something was still not right. I talked to friends and family who told me that I would get used to it, did not understand how anyone had to get used to something that should, in my opinion, be intrinsically pleasurable. I heard that it was not quite like that, that job is what allows us to do what we really love. But I thought: when ?! I wake up at 7 am, meditate and exercise, have breakfast and leave to work at 8:30 am; I work until 5 pm, do yoga or other activities until 7 pm; I come home at 7:30 p.m., prepare / warm up and eat dinner until 8:30 p.m., the two hours left over the day are to read a book, do the laundry, meditate, or check the social networks. When do I do what I love?

I think I need to recognize here that many people have a much harder work routine than I’ve described. Many have more than one job so they can have somewhere to sleep and put food on the table for their families, and they do not even have time to think about what they really want to do with their time. I recognize that my situation is extremely privileged and that I can only think about it and make that decision because of this privilege. I thank my parents and family for giving me this privilege and opportunity. But it is from the recognition of this privilege that one of my primary goals is to use it to give those who do not have it the opportunity to do what they love and live from it. Starting by serving as an example that it is possible.

Going back to the realizations of the end of the year, I first decided to try to change my current situation gradually, rather than making a more drastic decision. I wrote an email to the entire department where I worked, outlining some things that I thought could be improved and how we could improve them. I did not expect all my suggestions to be accepted and implemented, but I wanted to start the dialogue, as I heard complaints from my co-workers day-after-day. The email was well received by most, many said it was brave to have written all that, others thanked for bringing the problems to the forefront. However, my manager, the person responsible for the decision to implement the changes, simply told me, as she passed by my office, that what I had suggested could not be implemented for a reason that I had addressed in the email, clearly she did not read everything or simply was not interested in the suggestion. Two months passed and no change occurred, not even a meeting to discuss the problems took place.

In the meantime, another vacancy opened at college, the department manager encouraged me to apply to it, because he thought I would have a good chance of getting the job. Since I was not happy where I was and I thought the other position would be more interesting, I decided to apply. I went for the interview and was offered the job. I accepted on the condition that I could stay in the department where I was working because I wanted to implement a project that I had in mind to improve the service we offered, they accepted. I created a self-service system for students visiting the department that made it more efficient to serve students and eliminated certain problems we were encountering in the process. The system is far from an ideal solution, but my time and resources were limited and I wanted to leave knowing that I had left the department better than it was when I started. As these changes occurred at work, there was also the opportunity to move in with friends to a super well located home, where I would be paying far less than what I was in the apartment. I could not miss this opportunity and it would be the ideal time because I was also changing jobs and would get paid a little less than in my previous job. This did not really matter to me because it was something I thought would be more fun and I was promised that I would have a “stand-up desk” (a table that lifts so you can work while standing). I jumped head first into this sea of ​​change, I was excited. I started working on the house, cleaning, painting, and fixing some things that were old or broken. How good is the feeling of doing things with one’s hands and seeing the results of our work. These were two months of adaptation to all these changes. I decided to give away what I would not need, furniture, clothes, etc. I was startled to realize how much I had accumulated over these six years and how I did not even need half of it. I learned a great deal about my relationship to material goods.

After the adjustment period, when things calmed down, I realized there was still a sense of discontent within me. The work was different but it was still from 9am to 5pm sitting in front of the computer, the stand-up table only arrived, ironically, on my last day of work. The new house was super close to shops, restaurants and markets, but still very far from where I wanted to be, close to the river and the forest. I decided to make one last change before deciding to go back to Brazil, to change jobs radically.

I started working with children at a school near my house, it took less than a week for me to realize that that was not it either. This time the reason was not sitting all day, but rather the school’s teaching method, the way children were treated and how limited my ability to implement what I saw as ideal was in such a flawed system. It was then that I decided that there was no better decision to make at that time if not to return to Brazil. I was reminded of something a person I admire once told me, that when we make the “right” decision we have no doubt, we can maybe think twice, but deep down we will know that this is the decision to be made. This is how I feel about returning to Brazil.

As I returned from my journey at the end of the year, I had a vision of creating a space in my father’s place that can nourish the body, mind and soul of those who decide to spend time there. I saw myself again close to my family, working with children in nature, contributing to the community where I grew up. This vision remained clear all this time, I just did not have the courage to make it come true. I thought I still had a lot to learn before embarking on this path and I decided that this would be the year I would focus on learning so that next year I could start developing the project. Now, I realize that the learning will come as the project develops, that I have to be 100% involved in order to know what I should learn and how I will learn it. With that, I decided to go back and put all my energy into this project. I know it will not be an easy road, I have no money and I am still working on a concrete vision for the project. However, I truly believe that if you follow your heart and work to make your dream come true, somehow the universe takes care of the rest.

I would like to conclude with a request. If you have the opportunity to do what your heart is asking for, do it! Life is too short to wait for the perfect moment. I have heard from many people with a family to care for, that if they were my age they would choose to follow their dreams instead of what they had to do in order to take care of their families. If you are one of these people, know that it is never too late to go after your dreams, your children will grow up, become independent and support you just as you supported them in their journey. We are at a time in history when we are being invited and sometimes even forced (accidents, illnesses, etc.) to be authentic and to follow our hearts, take the invitation and join me and many others on this path!

Much love and light for all!