My time in Costa Rica was an unforgettable one. I traveled to beautiful beaches and exotic rain forests. I worked full time at a global logistics company and had the opportunity to meet and personally report to its corporate management. Almost every weekend I went on risky adventures such as canopying, repelling, touching a live 6 foot snake, and bungee jumping (the scariest and most heart-racing experience).

Certain people made my trip much more worthwhile: the Dream Careers Costa Rica coordinators Eric and Karol, the rest of the dreamers Donny, Evan, Mackenzie, and Santiago, the driver Eric, the motivational weekly speakers, my host family, my coworkers at Aerocasillas, and all my Tico, German, Mexican and foreign friends. I learned a lot from the relationships I established during my stay in Costa Rica and I look forward to keep on investing in them.

Living, Working, and Vacationing abroad impacted me on all levels. I was introduced to the professional business world as a first-time marketing intern. I opened my eyes to new theories and interesting life perspectives. Not only did I gain business, communication, and impersonal skills but I also learned more about myself. This trip has made me become more independent, open-minded, driven and prepared for the future that lies ahead of me. I hope to one day return to beautiful Costa Rica!!

Pura Vida!!

Well this is the 4^th and final blog entry on my experience in Costa Rica.  It’s been an absolutely fantastic way to spend two months of my summer and it’s flown by.  One of the single most incredible things is how well you can get to know a small group of people in just 8 weeks.  Thank you to my fellow “Dreamers”: Mackenzie Sheldon, Alejandra Borbon, Santiago Perez, and Evan Szheuss for making it what it was.

After another 8 weeks abroad, I’ve again discovered just how quickly one’s perspective on everything can completely change.  While there’s something to be said about what you can learn from travelling in general, this experience in particular, was one to take away from.   Not only did we get to travel to Costa Rica for 2 months, but we got to live with a Tica family, gain excellent professional experience, listen and speak to inspirational individuals, and fit in some touristy stuff.

For me, Costa Rica was a catalyst.  It marks the beginning of a new way of seeing the world.  It changed the way I think about people, places, culture, my perspective on the “real” world, and most importantly it created a plethora of new relationships with great people from all over the world.

When we all went out for the formal dinner on our last night together, it was easy to feel the mix of emotions around the table.  Sad to leave, excited to go home.  Wishing you could rewind and do it all again, but also excited about the new future.  It was obvious though that no one was quite ready for it to be over yet.  Juuuuust a little longer. 1 day…. 1 week………… 1 Semester…….2??  Wait, when was I supposed to graduate?  I wish.  Even though we’re all leaving Costa Rica, it doesn’t mean that it’s completely over.

The real tragedy would be to leave it all behind in Costa Rica, to forget everything we’ve learned about ourselves, our friends, and our families, and to fall back into the same routine we were in before we arrived.  To let the relationships and thinking that have developed over the last 2 months disappear.  Costa Rica absolutely brought us together and provided the setting, but beyond that, it was our relationships and interactions with the people around us that created the change.

So where do we go from here?  Well, I personally don’t know yet.  I mean I have a better idea than I did before I got here, but I can’t say that I’ve really figured out what my ‘dream’ career would be.  But I know what it wouldn’t be, and I have a better idea of what to look for and what I want to get out of a career.  I also got the motivation I needed to become a little more proactive about my future.

I think if I had to pick a few word to summarize the trip I would say inspirational, motivational, and proactive.  Each speaker we talked to had an incredible story of changing their lives or getting to the place they are now and each one was inspirational and most importantly, unique.  I would definitely say that the speakers were one of the most influential aspects of the program.

Costa Rica itself is an ideal place to witness the definition of being proactive and hard working.  The majority of my coworkers were about my age, full time university students, and they also managed to work full time.  It was incredible to me.   How could people be working so tirelessly and yet Costa Rica is still considered the happiest place in the world?  Well that’s just how it is in Costa Rica.  They can get up at 5:30am, drive 1.5hrs to work, work from 8am-6pm, go to class until 9 or 10pm, drive another 1.5hrs home, study and finish homework, and then get up and do it all again.  But they always manage to do it all with a playful attitude.  Pura Vida.

This to me was a sort of wake up call.  How much time have I wasted sitting like a vegetable watching mindless television?  I’m not saying I’m going to come home and work and study 18 hours a day but when I compare my lifestyle to theirs…I’m just another spoiled gringo.  What could I accomplish if I worked that hard every day?  How can I find something that will inspire me enough to dedicate that kind of time and energy to?  I mean there are plenty of options out there; it’s just a matter of choosing one and running with it.

This was another important topic for me throughout the trip: That the only thing you can ever do for certain is start. You can’t be afraid to embark on things whose ending is unknown.   Sure, there’s always the possibility of failure, but at least you’ll be able to say you tried.  And there’s the possibility of success, and nobody really knows where that could lead.  Essentially it comes down to two choices, you can do something, or you can do nothing.  Hopefully, I can take this trip with me and begin to do a little more something and a little less nothing.  I’ll look at my future in a more proactive way and seek it out rather than wait for it.

I think I still need to throw myself into a few more uncomfortable situations though, and see what comes out of it.  Something good always does.  In this case, it was a new group of close friends from all over the world (U.S., Mexico, Germany, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Canada), a comic love story, an incredibly close bond with a small, fragmented family, a chance to see one of the most beautiful countries in the world, a better understanding of the world and life, and a better understanding of myself and who I want to be as a person. Not to mention great work experience and networking connections.

So for me, Costa Rica was a catalyst.  It was what sparked a series of reactions.  It drew us all together here, it started here, but it’s certainly not ending here. Pura Vida, and thanks again to everyone that was a part of it.

After a great two months in Costa Rica my trip has come to a close. I am back in the United States and have spent my first couple days in Tucson. It is hard to imagine that two months ago I was boarding my flight to Costa Rica and yet there has been a great deal of change that has come as a result. Getting back to the U.S. I find that I am more relaxed and collected than may of my fellow amigos that stayed in the U.S. or went to Europe for the summer.

Many of my friends that once seemed less stressed and less frustrated than me now seem much more uptight and on edge. Many of the tribulations in their lives seem  silly to me as they are usually self-correctable with a small amount of will power or even material based.

Boredom is probably the most relievable of the ‘problems’ that I have noticed. I suggest to my friends and acquaintances that suffer from boredom I to fill their lives with more activities that they enjoy or that bring out and harness ‘flow.’

The exception to what I said above is my good friend that has been sailing for semester at sea for the last month and a half. He too seems to have grown and developed a great deal as a result of his experiences. We have relied on email to say in touch and there is a obvious parallel in that despite the differences in the structure of our trips, that we have drawn many of the same conclusions and continue to see the world in very similarly which I find to be an incredibly interesting result.

My experience(s) in Costa Rica helped me immensely to narrow my search and yet expanded my understanding of what I desire to do with my time and in life. From what I saw I refuse succumb to the misshaped and misinformed life model based on ‘needing’ the next greatest material object, which often comes with accumulating new debts. This tragic story of acquiring material possessions happens too often in the developed world as many people loose touch with what truly makes them happy then attempt to fill the void in their lives with material goods. As a result many people need a steady job to pay for bills, which to them often take president over a job that they would enjoy more but that may not be as stable.

I want to remain living within my means and knowing that happiness comes from within and from my social bonds with others. While it may not be exactly the same around the world Costa Rica opened my eyes to how many people live and it is not in the newest Mercedes Benz nor is it in a going to the newest bars every weekend. Family and friends are the glue that strength the Costa Rica society and make them great people as a result.

Thank you Costa Rica my eyes are now open.

Tragically the trip is quickly coming to an end.  As a group, we only have 2 days left together and it’s been an incredible experience to say the least.  I’ll try not to be too reflective with this blog since I still have one more to write once the trip is actually over.  So I’ll stick to stories.

Last weekend we had Monday off in recognition of a national holiday so we took the opportunity to escape to the Caribbean.  It was our first trip to the Caribbean side of the country that we had heard so much about and it was great to actually see and understand all of the differences that everyone had been talking about between the two coasts.   The 4 hour bus ride went quickly and we arrived in Puerto Viejo around 2 in the afternoon.  It was a lot smaller than I had imagined it (as everything seems to be here) and we pretty much walked through the entire town in 20minutes to get to our hotel.  Since it wasn’t a Dream Careers sponsored event, we were on our schedule which was nice because we got to relax a little bit more and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it.  The whole town was laid back, everyone just walking around barefoot with surfboards or riding their bike.  We got a ride to a beach that was up the road about 15 minutes from where we were staying and while we were eating dinner we got to watch easily one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen (although Arizona is tough to beat).

We made it back from the trip safe and sound and my last week at work was a nice one to go out on.  Both of my supervisors took a trip to Miami for a board meeting so the work load has been a little bit less than usual.  At the board meeting they were presenting 2 of the projects that I had been working on throughout my time here.  One was a forecast for the rest of the year and the other was a flash report, so I’m interested to see how those turned out.  This week I’ve been working on analyzing our pricing scales and gross margins and comparing them to sales volumes for numerous reasons that would be too lengthy to explain on a blog.

The family situation is still awesome and always getting better.  My host mom told me a few days ago that she really felt as if I was another son to her, or better yet, the grown up version of her current son haha.  It will definitely be hard to leave them but luckily I gave myself an extra week to hang out after my internship is over, so I don’t have to say goodbye quite yet.

Ooooh yeah, I don’t know how I forgot to mention this, I was caught up in Puerto Viejo, but 2 weekends ago, Mackenzie, Alejandra, and I all went bungee jumping in Naranjo, Alajuela, about 40 minutes from where we live here.  It was over el Rio Colorado off of an old bridge….80 meters/265 feet.  It was absolutely epic.