My crash course on surrendering to life

And how it turned out amazing

Last winter I kindly suggested to myself to be more open with people and friendships. The purpose of this Ocurre isn’t to tell you about how I was closed in the past but to tell you about the roller-coaster ride I've experienced since I decided to open up to the world.

Back in winter, I remember it was cold, snowy and quite depressing to see how the sun set at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, so as you can guess I had a lot of time to think until bed time. One of those days a thought came to my mind: I don't want to be alone anymore, I want to be surrounded by people.

It was tough, I’m not going to lie. I didn't have a clue on how and where to start. Living in the countryside in the middle of nowhere didn't help either. Fortunately, I had someone by my side that knows a couple of things about relationships. Thank you Em.

I set a strategy in place, a set of actions that would lead me to the desired outcome: connecting with people. How naive of me. Early in the adventure I discovered this wasn't something I could approach this way, this is not an algorithmic activity, this is humans we're talking about, people.

So yeah, a lot of pain came my way thanks to my strategic approach. I remember thinking “fuck this, I’d rather be alone.” Later on, I discovered that this thought was only a cover up trying to hide the real feelings. Feelings like fear of showing my true self, fear of being me, of being enough, of being vulnerable, fear of trying and failing. I had a lot of fear.

Once I listened to all my of fears, I realized that they were only fears, they weren't reality. I was compassionate towards myself and determined to not give up.

So with a bit of outside help and reassurance (thanks Em again) and also changing my own point of view regarding the events I was experiencing, things seemed to start working out on their own. I suddenly had a couple of people appear in my life, a couple of interesting conversations, even a couple of calls! Damn that felt nice.

Fast forward to the present, I realized that all of the thoughts I had in the beginning about relationships were completely wrong. To mention one, right now I'm living even more remote than when I decided to open up and I'm surrounded by more people than ever. The remoteness had nothing to do with it.

But the real challenge was approaching without me realizing it. The real test was seeing if all of my work and changes had been real—they were going to be put to test.

We met some people on a quick trip to Madrid, extremely randomly in a book shop. We had lunch together and left the city right after that. Everything seemed really nice, I remember thinking “what an amazing experience I’ve just had, this might be a reflect of my openness!” In the hype of the moment, we (Em and I) invited the people we’d just met to the house we were moving to in that moment. “Come visit whenever you want!” we said, and then we got on a train and left the city. 

Two months went by, we were already in our new house in another country and one of the guys texts me: “I’m thinking about visiting you guys at the end of August.”

Fuck. This is happening. What I thought could never happen is happening. This guy I only shared some patatas bravas with wants to come visit. My brain does the talking, gets the full control of me, and not for the better. “But you don't know this guy, how are you going to let him eat your food? Sleep on your couch? Pick him up? You serious man?" 

Against my brain’s behavior, I decided to continue with the guy's plan. Let time tell if he's serious about it. 

Time went by, some short conversations in between and one day the guy messages me saying “I’m thinking 20th of August for 5 days, what do you think about that?” Oh fuck is what I felt, again. You threw him the rope and he's taking it. Panic! What now? But my personal scenario had change since his last message, I was now reading a book called The Surrender Experiment (thanks Joe for this). The book that tells you about how amazing life can be when you decide to surrender to what life brings to you instead of constantly go against it. 

This guy’s visit might be my experiment. Time to put the lessons into practice. No more fiction, this is real life, my life. 

So before answering his message I took a moment, I thought about surrendering, this guy is coming whether you like it or not. So, instead of believing all the rubbish your brain is telling you about this guy and the situation you'd probably experience, how about surrendering? Letting go of control. 

So I did, I decided to be open to it. Suddenly my brain’s scenario changed. There was no more rubbish, no more rumbling. Instead thoughts like “how can I make this guy’s experience the best I can?” started to flow into my mind. Damn. This was a change. I was getting more and more excited by the minute. Wow. 

But life knows better, and this was not enough of a challenge.

I remember being in the kitchen experiencing all this openness and went to the garden to tell Em about it. Just before I was going to start telling her she dropped it: the girl we meet that day is coming too, she's just booked her flight. 

That was incredible. The moment I decided to surrender not one person was coming, but two!!!

Two weeks later they were both here and let me tell you, this has been one of the biggest learnings of my life.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have pictured the experience of them being here, how amazing it was.

When we first moved here, a few months ago, we discovered a wakeboard park 20 mins away from our home. I told myself “one day that I'll try it.” Time went by and couldn't find a good enough excuse to go and do it. 

Until Jake appeared, he motivated me to go and do it. So we did it together. I remember telling him in the car heading to the lake that never in my life could I have thought about trying wakeboard for first time with a random Australian guy.

So I guess here is a big lesson on surrendering, and another big one on friendships.

Thank you Jake for making me have this hell of awakening, even without you realizing!

And if having this massive realization wasn’t enough and I needed some kind of confirmation that life knows better, Jake went and commented on my last Ocurre, just went I finished writing this one, as if he was listening or something.

Me and the boy planeando la jugada