Forgiveness And Moving On

Years ago I found myself in a remote part of Costa Rica.  Drake Bay on the Pacific Coast is a beautiful paradise of lush jungles and slow tropical life, with world class scuba diving.

I had just gone through a breakup with my girlfriend of 3 years, and booked the trip on a desperate whim after essentially throwing a dart at the map.  I needed to run away, to be in a place that wouldn’t remind me.

It was a tough breakup, with plenty of hurt feelings and regrets to go around.  Scuba diving every day served as the perfect metaphor to match my emotional state.  I was sinking into the depths of despair.  Or perhaps I was diving toward beauty in a desperate attempt to offset the ugly.

Forgiveness And Moving On

Life In Drake Bay

I did 3 or 4 dives a day, then sat at the beach bar every night drowning my sorrows.  Maybe I was wronged, maybe I did some of the wronging.  Whatever, that’s the human condition and life is messy.

But I couldn’t stop blaming myself.  My inner dialogue from this breakup, and for many other parts of my life, was just an accusatory self-scolding.  I convinced myself that I made my own bed, regardless of how it actually played out.

I’ve struggled with negative self talk my whole life.  It no doubt stems from childhood trauma and a relationship with my Dad that was, let’s just say, complex.

 

A Random Act Of Kindness

Forgiveness And Moving On

The diving was spectacular

On the second day of the trip one of my flip flops got stuck in the wet sand on the beach while I was getting off the dive boat.  When I took a step to pull it out, the thongs ripped right off the base. 

At the time Drake Bay was practically nothing.  A few small guesthouses, two dive outfits, and no pavement.  Going the rest of the trip without flip flops was not exactly an emergency, but wearing shoes everyday in an area pretty much made of sand wasn’t ideal. 

I went back to my room at the guesthouse, dumped the damaged flip flops, and went on my way to the beach bar. 

When I came back hours later, my flip flops were sitting on my bed.  They were cleaned, and the torn thong had been perfectly sewn back to the base. 

I went to the woman who owned the guesthouse and asked in astonishment if she had done this.  She was smiling and blushing.

“Si”. 

After a litany of “graciases” I offered her money, but she refused to take it.

For the remainder of the trip we interacted each day only when I came back from diving to clean up and head off to the beach for solitude.  Her smile was contagious, and permanent. 

We didn’t talk, but I could sense she knew why I was there. 

Forgiveness And Moving On

The airport at Drake Bay. This is literally it.

I continued to offer her money for the repair, and she continued to refuse.

Money clearly didn’t serve the role in her life that it did in mine, and that revelation alone forced me to look in the mirror and reflect.  She had my gratitude, and I suspect that was more than enough for her.

Her kindness to me, a total stranger, exposed the lack of kindness I had for myself.  It showed that the self-loathing I bombarded myself with was an unjust mantra that even most strangers wouldn’t dare level at me.

 

Forgive

Forgiveness And Moving On

Getting up close and personal

Your faults and missteps, whether they be in relationships or with money, are part of you.  They’re necessary for growth, but only after forgiveness.  Don’t always confuse the inevitable chaos and adversities of life with mistakes and shortcomings. 

At a minimum you have to treat yourself better than a stranger.  But it’s best to love yourself, learn, and move on.  For me it’s a work in progress.

I still think of that woman sometimes, and wonder why it took the selflessness of a total stranger for me to examine how I see myself.  Especially a stranger who, from a material point of view, hasn’t been blessed with a fraction of the abundance in life that I’ve enjoyed. 

But maybe that’s the point, and why it resonated.

 

One Last Dive

After a week of heavy diving my ears were hurting.  The constant pressure changes had taken their toll.  But the underwater world off Drake Bay was one of the most magical I’d ever experienced. 

So on my final day I decided to do one last morning dive, with plans to nap away the afternoon on the beach and try to make sense of life. 

On the boat ride out to the dive site I stared out at the ocean, not sure how much the trip had healed me, if at all.  Reality at home was waiting for me a plane flight away, and it still looked awfully like a black cloud.

We got to the dive site, anchored, and suited up.  As the boat bobbed in the waves we waited for the divemasters call to jump. 

I looked down at my flip flops, smiled, and dove into the beauty.

Subscribe To New Posts Here!

Dave @ Accidental FIRE

I reached financial independence and semi-retired in my mid-40's through hard work, smart living, and investing. This blog chronicles my journey and explores many aspects of personal finance including the psychological and behavioral factors that drive our habits.

You may also like...

35 Responses

  1. Aaron says:

    Good post. Gratitude matters!

  2. xrayvsn says:

    What a great experience. A random act of kindness has such a lasting effect as evidenced by you still remembering it after all these years.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Yep, that stuff matters. And I’ve found that the 3rd world has more of these random acts than we do in the first

  3. Man you’ve hit upon one of the most difficult aspects of life – self forgiveness. Thanks for sharing so transparently about your journey toward self forgiveness. We’re all a work in progress.

  4. Great one, Dave and we’ll said! Sometimes the right people find us in life at the right times. Awesome stuff!

    Also – I did my graduate research on the Osa Peninsula. Drake bay claimed a few of my sampling spots, as well as tons of other streams along the coast. Spent 6 months down there and loved it! One of my top 3 places in the world and I think I’ve stayed a night or two in the spot you have pictured – maybe even know the woman. Small world, man.

    Nice post

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Wow, so cool! 6 months in Drake Bay, that must’ve been incredible. Even if you were working I imagine your stress levels went down. That place is so remote and chill… it’s paradise

  5. There are still plenty of good people in the world. I think most of us wants to be generous and help others. City living build a callus, though. It’d be nice to live in a small community for a while.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      I think most people are good, and I’ve been to many countries and see decent portions of the world. But I agree, city living hardens most folks. There’s an old quote that says “live in the city once less you get too soft, and live in the country once less you get too hard” or something like that. Kinda true.

  6. S.G. says:

    I call bad financial decisions “tuition in the school of life”. Hopefully I learn my lesson after making mistakes (and hopefully I don’t beat myself up when a reasonable risk just doesn’t go my way). But all of life is like that. Expecting to not make mistakes and bad decisions is like expecting to get 100% on a pre-test at school. If you haven’t covered the material yet there is no reason you should be acing that test. Now the opposite is true as well: once you’ve covered the material you probably shouldn’t be making the same mistake again, but if you do then reality makes you retake the class.

  7. I love this story. Although I see the lesson of forgiveness that you reflected on, I also see the sense of “enough” from the woman’s point of view. Her enjoyment in life came from helping you, something money can’t buy. I see a bit of the Mexican Fisherman in her, that her day is right and she is happy, not needing the extra money.

    Maybe you should have asked her on a date, huh?

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Ha, she had a family and let’s just say I wasn’t ready to date yet 🙂

      But yes, I think the Mexican fisherman is being lived out by so many folks in poorer countries. And they definitely seem rich to me.

  8. great story, dave. dad stuff tends to hand around a while i’ve noticed. the way is forward, but it took some time to learn that. banjo! and i stop to talk to an elderly dominican lady a few days a week if she’s sitting on her front stoop. we can barely communicate together outside of my limited “hola!, como estas?” but it doesn’t seem to matter much. she makes me smile every single time and vice versa. it’s a great two way gift with no expectations.

  9. Love the reminder that kindness is never the wrong choice ❤️

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Thanks Angela, your post a while back helped inspire me to be a little more vulnerable myself. It’s hard

  10. Q-FI says:

    The hardest part of practicing acceptance and forgiveness is learning to internalize it and forgive yourself – it’s a process and not a destination. Thanks for your honesty and sharing.

  11. I practice gratitude every day, and it’s not always easy. Why they call it “practice,” I suppose.
    But what I particularly like about this story is the emphasis on self-love. Gratitude is a great start, but high-achieving people tend to hold themselves to (very) high standards, which often translates to self-flagellation rather than self-forgiveness and self-love.
    Thanks for another great post!

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      I tried doing the “write down 5 things you’re grateful for every morning” deal for a while. It helped, but then I ran out of things and was doing lots of repeats 🙂 But like you said there’s a difference between gratitude and self-love.

      Thanks for the kudos Brian!

  12. Ms Mod says:

    That’s beautiful! Deeply makes you think about the impact we can have on others through kindness.

  13. Great post! I feel like those guardian angles are planted for a reason. Just little reminders either not to take yourself too seriously, or know that people still really do care!

  14. Great story on gratitude and the little things, thanks for sharing this.

  15. Some people have been taught that self-care, loving yourself, things like that…is selfishness. For us, self-forgiveness starts out as a foreign concept. Thank you for the reminder that it’s not only not a foreign concept but that it’s necessary and good. You can’t get to the “moving on” until you get past that point.

  16. Chris@TTL says:

    Lots of vulnerability in here, Dave:
    – Romantic breakup
    – Aimless trip
    – Childhood trauma
    – Father issues
    – Self-flagellation

    …Yet, the story ends with you quite literally remembering a moment of gratitude and recognizing selflessness in others—all while you appreciate a truly simple part of life (natural beauty).

    That sounds like a whole lot of struggle, growth, and acceptance on your part.

    It takes a lot to write something like, a piece of yourself—being honest, open, vulnerable—very difficult.

    But perhaps writing it was part of the healing, and maybe the most valuable part.

    • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

      Thanks so much Chris, that was the first post I did where I started to open up more and be more vulnerable. It feels good to write but as I alluded I’m not sure the posts do as well in a PF sphere. I put a ton of effort into this one on the writing part and was happy how it came out.

      • Chris@TTL says:

        A pleasure to read—so thank you!

        I feel you. We have a handful of posts that earn the most traffic on the site (though we’re still quite young!)—and they’re all informational/question answering sorts of things. Nothing that I would label as particular enjoyable to read or exceptional prose. But, that’s the master that is a search engine. Knowledge.

        C’est la vie.

        We’re fortunate to be able to write for our own pleasure and personal goals. 🙂

        • Dave @ Accidental FIRE says:

          Keep writing the way you want to and ignore what Google tells you to do, that just becomes listicles and robotic stuff with no personality.

Drop Me A Comment - What's On Your Mind?