Lessons at 40

Posted on by stanleyobando

Since my birthday is in January, I get to mull over the past year of my life and the past calendar year all at the same time. Here, in random order, are some of the things I learned from a bumpy 40/2019:

  • Having a sunny view of life is a gift. If you consistently overestimate people, you will get hurt sometimes – but it’s probably worth it.
  • You must, however, find people you trust who tend to think the worst of people, and tend to be right. You then need to listen to them. Even if you plunge ahead despite their warnings or have no choice in the matter, they’ll help you fall a little more gracefully.
  • An obsession with unicorns is contagious. (Sighs, sips from unicorn coffee mug.)
  • It really is true that everyone should go to therapy at some point. I am totally going to be that mom who offers to buy her teenage daughter some therapy sessions and is met by an eye roll so intense she will need medical care afterwards. You think that running is your therapy, or your best friend is your therapy – but only therapy is therapy. There is nothing like talking for an hour a week to a person whose only job is to look out for your mental health and well being.
  • Women are incredibly resilient. Also: many people, including many women, love to talk about women being catty, or stabbing each other in the back, but that’s the biggest scam in history. It’s absolutely astonishing the things women will set aside when their principles are on the line.
  • Media organizations should be owned by journalists.
  • Confidence and talking about your own accomplishments are not the same thing. In fact, they often have an inverse relation.
  • Eighty percent of insects have not even been named yet. Isn’t that insane?
  • Vulnerability is the source of all power, because power comes from not caring what else happens to you next. Only when you are at the bottom looking up, or laying everything bare because there is no other option – only then are you truly powerful.
  • Finally: Adulthood is not conferred by any particular milestone, but rather revealed by sudden stress. You expect it when you get your diploma or your first paycheck, or when you walk down the aisle, or when you get wheeled into the delivery room, but it never arrives at those moments. You realize that it has happened when something unpleasant and totally unexpected takes you to the edge of a chasm, and you have no choice but to take a step out into the ether like Indiana Jones and hope that a bridge appears. It sucks, and it’s awesome, because when that bridge materializes under your foot, it’s made of everything: every shitty life lesson you would rather have skipped, every meaningful mistake, parents present and gone, friends and foes, hidden treasures you didn’t know you had. I look at my daughter and imagine that moment in her future. I am not eager for it to arrive, but it gives me additional understanding of why helicopter parenting is so silly. It all goes in the concrete mixer, good and bad: both valuable, both sturdy enough when the time comes.

That’s what I’ve got. What did you learn last year?

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

Martin Mecnarowski via Shutterstock

 

Day 66: The power of your tourist dollar

Posted on by stanleyobando
Baird's tapir in Costa Rica

Some time ago, the Costa Rican owner of a small hotel told me the story of the quiet night guard I had just seen patrolling the lobby, looking out at the shadowy forest beyond.

The night guard had once been a hunter. As in many areas of rural Costa Rica, limited economic opportunities made this an important source of income and sustenance, and local species pay the price – even, sometimes, protected or endangered species. This man was once on a hunting expedition where he saw some of his fellow hunters kill an endangered Baird’s tapir, called “the gardener of the forest” because of its critical role in spreading seeds and preserving Costa Rica’s ecosystems.

The tapir was so large that the men who had killed it couldn’t even take all of its meat out with them. They left much of it behind on the forest floor. That didn’t sit right with this man. His future in a different sort of job began that night.

Today, this man is doing work that helps people from all over the world get to know rural Costa Rica, understand its biodiversity, and maybe even – if they are extremely lucky – get a rare glimpse of the endangered Baird’s tapir. His son has even led his first nature tour, sharing the forest with visitors. The guard is part of an enterprise created by local community members: it’s one of many small businesses around Costa Rica that are not only providing economic opportunities, but also helping change the way the community sees and values its natural surroundings.

Could a job at a big hotel have helped this man leave hunting behind? Sure. But those hotels don’t often reach the rural areas where this type of transformation is most valuable, where local residents are responsible for some of the country’s rarest species and most precious ecosystems. And it’s rare – doesn’t have to be impossible, but rare – that a massive resort leaves its earnings in the pockets of the local community, or shares with every single employee a passion for environmental sustainability. Even rarer – again, not impossible! but rare – that the owner of a big hotel would know the backstory of the night guard. Rarer still that the owner would have shared that story with a guest, turning her weekend into a source of inspiration and pride.

At this time of year, some of us are planning our 2020 expeditions, making resolutions to stash some money away in a trip jar, hoping to visit this place or that. The places we choose to go and the businesses we choose along the way really do make a difference. We can simply pay for a place to sleep, or we can end up feeling that we have been a part of something important. As Jane Goodall said,  “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” This is never more true than when we book a trip.

No matter where we travel, the magical thing is this: we’re surrounded by walking, talking stories. We never know when we might get to hear one and how it might change us. Sometimes all we have to do is ask. Sometimes they come to us unbidden, a sudden gift, as fleeting and as powerful as a sudden glimpse of an animal in the deep woods. An animal that has been left alive, free to roam.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

Day 61: I want to send you a boost in the mail!

Posted on by stanleyobando

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to send someone a Costa Rican care package – and that moment has arrived. I’ll send a little box of CR love to a Daily Boost reader next week! To my delight, three of my favorite local businesses jumped on board to make the package even more amazing: Santo Café, Alma Artesana and Holalola Travel Gifts.

I’ve gotten lots of messages over the years from from Ticos abroad who miss their country during the holidays or non-Ticos who wish they were here. I am excited to reconnect with some of those same people through this contest and meet others who love Costa Rica, so even if you yourself aren’t interested, I’ll hope you’ll share the contest anyway so we can welcome some new readers into the fold before the year is out. (You can also transfer your win to a friend if, say, you live in Costa Rica or are visiting soon and would rather someone else benefit. So come one, come all!)

To enter, simply:

1. Like the Daily Boost on Facebook or Instagram, if you haven’t already.

2. Like the post about this contest (from today, Monday, Dec. 9).

3. In the comments for that post, tag a friend who might like the Boost in general, and/or this contest in particular. (I’ll give you a bonus entry if, in that same comment, you tell me a little about one of your favorite Costa Rican holiday memories or experiences – sights, sounds, smells, treats, people you miss – so I can share them in a later post. But this is a bonus, not required. I have plenty of readers who have not yet set foot in Costa Rica!)

Note: If you follow the blog via email and refuse to be on Facebook or Instagram, I think you are awesome. Simply comment below to enter, and tell a friend another way.

This will close Weds. at midnight EST. On Thursday, Dec. 12, I will draw and announce the winner, and I’ll send a package to any address in the Americas. It includes:

  • Delicious coffee from Santo Café (which sources its beans from the award-winning coffee region of Los Santos)
  • A gorgeous Gallopin in the shape of the Costa Rican flag and a lovely dried-flower resin paperweight from Siempreviva (both Alma Artesana artisans)
  • A package of Holalola postcards featuring all seven provinces, plus her whimsical Christmas card
  • A signed copy of “Love in Translation: Letters to My Costa Rican Daughter,” because of course
  • Some traditional Costa Rican sweets, including a Tapita Navideña, Guayabitas, and a delicious box of rainbow Chocofrutas.
  • Plus Salsa Lizano. You gotta have it.

Help me bring a little Costa Rican fun to someone’s holiday – and thanks for reading this year!

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

Day 56: Champion of the Earth? Watch this space

Posted on by stanleyobando

Today’s post is a little different. As you know, I started this year-long project as a search for sources of hope, changemakers to rally around and solutions we can all get behind. Small and concrete. When it comes to today’s topic, I am not yet informed enough to be able to say, “Here’s a simple Thing to Do.” But as someone who sings the praises of Costa Rica on the regular, I think that even if all I have to share today is an alarm bell, that needs to be done. (Maybe someone in this awesome little community of readers can further educate me.)

In other words: Costa Rica’s recent designation as a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations is not sitting well with many of the country’s environmentalists, and case #1 in the docket is the approval of a massive multinational pineapple plantation next to one of the world’s most prized wetlands. I’m talking about the Térraba Sierpe, which has been named one of the most important wetlands on the planet.

The country’s National Technical Secretariat for the Environment, SETENA, has approved a certificate of environmental feasibility to Pindeco, a subsidiary of Del Monte, to use almost 500 hectares of land contiguous to Térraba Sierpe for pineapple cultivation. If you don’t know about the human and environmental cost of pineapple cultivation in Costa Rica, The Guardian sums it up quite nicely here (yes, it’ll put you straight off your pineapple). Semanario Universidad reported last week that the plantation will be less than 500 meters from the center of the community of Palmar Sur, thereby sparking fears about the exposure of residents to toxic agrochemicals – this Punto y Aparte journalism project at Delfino.cr investigated the horrendous health problems caused by pineapple plantations elsewhere in the country  – and less than five kilometers from the heart of the Térraba Sierpe, which has been shown to be deeply affected in the past by agrochemicals used up to one hundred kilometers away.

Dive into the comments section on this issue or another government action taking place right now, legislators’ revival of shrimp trawling, and you’ll see the familiar tension between very real and urgent local economic needs and environmental alarm. But when you see “champion of the Earth,” “irreversible damage” and “irreplaceable ecosystem” in the same sentence, the one thing you know for sure is that this is not a conversation you want to walk away from.

So today’s Monday Motivation is simply: those of us who love Costa Rica, from wherever we are, need to watch this space. We can’t afford not to.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

Day 51: A parade for your Costa Rica bucket list

Posted on by stanleyobando

Holiday-wise, November brings some celebrations to Costa Rica from other climes: some people do celebrate Thanksgiving here, whether because of a U.S. relative or just a liking for the idea, and of course, Black Friday rears its ugly head with increasing vigor each year. But November is also the time for the most authentic Costa Rican tradition you can imagine – the Oxcart Parade, which fills the country’s biggest city with the pride of its countryside.

You need to see this spectacle for yourself. In case that’s not imminently feasible, I took lots of photos, as you can see. So did a gaggle of professional photographers, which, in fact, is part of the reason I have never attended this event in 15 years in Costa Rica: it’s across town on a Sunday morning, and I guess I’ve always figured I will see it in the paper the next day, expertly captured by the best. But oh, the sheer volume of cart after painstakingly painted cart, the faces of the impeccably coiffed girls and stoic old ladies riding high in their places of honor, the old man strumming his guitar and making every child on the sidewalk fist-bump him, the kids casually steer enormous bulls through the streets… it was an astonishing thing to witness.

And I probably would have missed it except for the Daily Boost, an entirely made-up obligation. Which taught me something. I kind of hate it when people say that what you put out into the world is what you get back, because even though they would hasten to say they don’t mean that you “earn” illness or injustice, that’s always how the statement hits me. In big ways, the statement is not true, because some people simply do not get what they deserve. But it can be true in small ways. If you love something and talk about it, an announcement in the paper about that very thing will catch your eye in a new way. If you decide that you are supposed to be a person who finds beauty around her, for no other reason than that you said so, you will find yourself in the middle of beauty more often.

So much of life, of what we see or miss, is determined by the tiniest breaths of air that blow us one way or another when we make a decision, when we balance on that tipping point between “meh” and “yes.” When we say out loud what we love and want to see, even if we only say it to ourselves, we make our own breeze. Not gusts of wind. Just the smallest puffs. But at the right moment, they can still change our course.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

 

Day 21: There is a castle in the clouds

Posted on by stanleyobando

If you’re reading this bright and early on Monday morning, you’re probably bracing yourself, just as I am. Right? Is at least part of your brain thinking, “Oh, lord. It’s Monday. What fresh hell will be inflicted on us by the time I turn off my computer tonight?”

I hear you. Here’s something that I plan to draw comfort from when those crises roll around. No matter what happens out in the world, there is one place where you can be sure something good will have happened by the end of today. There is a little corner of Costa Rica, hidden away up a long and winding road, where people from all over the world will have spent the day trying to figure out together how to fix the environment, resolve conflicts and promote world peace.

I recently got to spend three days at the University for Peace, and I gotta tell you, it makes me feel better just knowing it’s there. On a hillside where toucans flit from tree to tree, every corner you turn yields a new spot to rest and reflect, the bathrooms are adorned with poetry, and the benches are labeled “BENCH OF DREAMS,” it’s impossible to be cynical. It’s impossible not to be grateful for the foresight of the people who donated this incredible piece of land; the UN General Assembly for establishing this institution; the Executive Education Centre that allows people like me to take a class; and the fresh-faced young people – they might not all be fresh-faced and young, but that was my overwhelming impression – who seek out a degree there. They’re not doing it to become more prosperous, or even more successful, by the traditional standards many of us might employ. They’re doing it to become effective leaders, to make a bigger difference, and to become gentler human beings.

If you live in Costa Rica, head to Ciudad Colón and take a day trip up to the public park next to the university, where you can stroll around and even enjoy a meal at the little restaurant nestled between ponds, Kaninka. The drive up alone is soul-soothing. And if you can’t go in person, try making UPeace – or your favorite lovely spot where future leaders are being educated – your happy place for awhile. Pour yourself a cup of coffee at the university soda, sit down on a Bench of Dreams (because who doesn’t want to sit on a bench of dreams?), smile as a muddy dog or marmalade cat inevitably curls up nearby, and gaze out over the valley below. We are not alone. If we don’t have the strength to think of answers, someone out there is doing it for us – and when they sleep, or give up hope, maybe that’s when we’ll find the energy to take a shift.

May this idea bring you a little peace of mind as a new week begins.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).