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Stuck in Paradise

Updated: Apr 19, 2018


While my head is still following last night’s beats, I try to find a spot to relax on the beach. The sand is white, the water is light blue and calm. Bright sun beams throw hard shadows at you. A blonde girl on a blue towel works on a local breakfast. She is alone. I join the scene.


“Happy new year, how are you?”

- “Happy new year, hungover.”


We become friends, E. and I.


She tells me she is stuck in Gili.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

- “Well I am here for two months already.”

“You choose to be here.”


- “ My plan was to travel in Asia and this is my second stop, but I feel I don’t need to travel further. This is paradise.”


I smile. Again, performance culture is beaten. Why do we need to do as much as we can, why all that ambition? It reminds me of the prison of ambition. An ambition, so high, that getting there requires to leave other great things. The road to that ambition, is not a road, but a narrow corridor surrounded by thick high walls. But E. has escaped that prison, she has freed herself from the obligation to go to as many places as possible and she is still traveling. She chooses to stick around and do whatever, as in Gili, there are no plans. You don’t need to go anywhere, you have zero appointments, zero pressure. Sure, there are other beautiful places. Trying to see as many as you can, feels like.. Feels like greed. Greed, while you are already in paradise. Paradise should be enough, right? Some rather chase for happiness and satisfaction, hoping both will be in another place. They won't be. Happiness arises from the inside, wherever you are. Relax, let go, you are alive, that already is great, happiness is here.

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