Sometimes things just won’t start looking up until you start looking up.  I am now securely moved into my new home and working out of my humble little store where we sell indigenous arts and crafts from various Costa Rican tribes.  The new scaled-down version of my life fits sort of well.  I always thought it was important to think big and be big, a very “American” view of success.  But what really matters is not how “big” you are, but how large an impact you can have. And you can’t have much of an impact if you are always drowning in bills that flow like a river from the “cuenca” of your attempts to be bigger than you really need to be.  This blog has brought me full circle in terms of my thinking and being.  In the course of writing it I have harbored big dreams and visions.  Dreams of being that “go-to guy” for anyone out there interested in Costa Rica.  Well I am that guy, but just in a quieter, humbler and less stressful way.  I hope my love of Costa Rica has shown through these posts.  I mean, I hope my writing has in some ways lived up to the title.  I love where I live, love what I do and love writing with the hope that someone out there will get either a laugh, a message of encouragement, or a hint of what it is like to live in Costa Rica.  My plan is to keep writing. The title of this 365th post is “Nuevo Comienzo” and that is exactly what it brings me to, both in terms of my writing and living here in this tiny little spec of paradise I call home.  Of course, bright and early tomorrow expect Reason #1 all over again.

Pura Vida and thanks for reading me.

My very first post to this blog was on July 3, 2008, over a year and a half ago.  With this post I begin the last 100, the march towards completion of my 365th reason! Writing this thing has been a real labor of love for me.  It has kind of morphed into something I never intended it to be.  I started off with marketing ploy visions dancing through my head, but as I began to write the exercise turned into one of personal catharsis.  Sure I could have made it more marketable and likely have attracted more readers in the process, but you know I am happy with what I have done and I think that’s more important.  One thing I will “pat myself on the back about” is that what once was an idea actually became a reality….and that is sometimes a rare thing, especially for me.  I wrote a daily distinction today that addresses the long list of things I have thought about doing, but just never quite seem to get around to…it goes like this: Great ideas without follow through aren’t worth the paper they’re written on AND are a waste of the “grey matter” that conjured them.  All too often I am much better at thinking laudable thoughts than doing laudable deeds.  Ever get that feeling?  Wonder why that is?  Certainly doing generally entails a certain amount of perceived pain…be it fear of falling flat on one’s face, or some other conjured calamity.  But achievement without action usually just doesn’t happen in the real world we live in.  If it does happen for you, the results are usually a bit fleeting and certainly not very rewarding (take a look at what happens to most lottery winners…they end up poorer than they started).  So I hope (no, I expect) that in 2010 I will stop thinking so much and begin doing a little more. Oh, what will I do once I reach the 365th reason, you ask?  That’s for me to know and for you to find out!  How’s that for a marketing ploy?