Moving on, or stay and crash! Time for a choice.
In 2017, being grounded at home under doctor’s order, I was facing a harsh reality. I knew that I needed to reinvent myself, to make significant changes to my life if I was going to go through this health crisis, and beyond. Moving on ! I was medicated to control my blood pressure and medicated to control my moods. I had to be moving on !
It was pretty clear to me that the work situation couldn’t continue under the same conditions. If there is one thing that really upset and surprised me, it is that companies and individuals, such as the one I worked for, that are in power situations, still think that managing by fear and intimidation will yield positive results. You have to be pretty stupid and have your head deep in the sand to believe that. Furthermore, my boss enjoyed treating people like dirt. He prides himself as being capable of having ANY of his employees in his office and have them cry within 10 minutes. Quite the asshole, right ? Yes, people like this exist.
So based on this, I knew that things at work would never change under the current leadership. Anyway I was in no emotional health to even consider a return to this hell-hole.
“I used this as my outlet, my tool to focus on positive thoughts.”
There is nothing unusual in this story so far. Hundreds, thousands of people go through this type of situation, and it’s a shame. Where I believe my story is different is how I turned-it around.
So the idea of self-learning popped into my head. If I was capable of achieving a directorship job for a major airline without a university degree, I was also able to use my head to learn new skills by myself. I had plenty of time on my hands, alone at home, so why not take advantage of this time and reinvent myself. This is when the idea of building a website and writing about my travel experiences came to life. Flying Sardines was born. It is with absolutely no idea of how to even start building a website that I ventured in the magnificent maze of the internet and started reading all that I could find on the subject. Several trials and many errors later, I had built my first website, flyingsardines.com. I used this as my outlet, my tool to focus on positive thoughts. And it worked !
“...we knew that this was going to be our new life.
Now came the time where I needed to decide what would be next. Not yet financially or emotionally ready to go full on towards retirement, I decided to research where in the world I could live a better life with a much lower budget. That was easy. Life in Canada is fairly expensive, compared to a multitude of other countries. So I opted for an exploratory trip to South-East Asia. Luckily, my life-partner Karine is quite open and willing to follow me on these adventures. There is was… 6 months after being warned by my doctor of my critical blood-pressure levels, I had quit my job and left with Karine ona backpacking adventure for a 7-month trip. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar were our destinations and we learned so much about travelling together, about ourselves and about the Asian culture. Living on a budget of $65 per day for the 2 of us, we had drastically reduced our spending, compared to those of our homeland, Montreal.
Upon our return to Canada, we knew that this was going to be our new life. Travel to countries where the cost of living is low, and eventually settle down in one of these places. So we spent 6 months back home, and prepared for our next journey, which would be for a duration of 18 months.
“Able to wear flip-flops 365 days per year”
So in January of 2019, we set-off to the Philippines and this time, we were open to stop in any city that would speak to us, that would fulfill our checklist. See, we had a few very important criterias that were needed for us to be satisfied with our next home.
- Warm country
- Live near the sea
- Able to wear flip-flops 365 days/year
- Community of locals and expats looking for a better life, learning, growing and sharing
So 3 months into our quest, we landed in Bali, Indonesia. Having visited this island 7 years prior, we kind of knew what to expect but had heard of new areas that had developed, such as Canggu, a once small village that had expanded due to the popularity of it’s surfing waves. At first, the magic didn’t operate. Too many people, too developed, too americanized. But then, chance (or the universe, whatever you believe in) managed to align a few planets for us. We bumped into the right people at exactly the right time. BIG BANG. We were all of a sudden propelled towards what would become our new home, our new lives !
When Karine and I met a guy that would set us on a completely different course of action with our health, we knew we were on to something big !
That was it, one single event, one single meeting et voilà. Our path had taken a drastic turn… for the better! We had taken the red pill and were off for an awesome ride !
