Freedom

The Summer of 2014 was great, fine parties, new friendships and lot of beach time.

I did pretty much what I am best at, I had fun.

Summer feeling at a boat party in Lagos, Portugal

What means freedom to you?

Everyone talks about it, everyone wants it, most people have different definitions and views about it.

For me its to be independent, no kneeling no buckling and no acting, just being able to be myself.

Being free is also for me to say, I am going away tomorrow, I am leaving this city, this place or this country, because I am not happy here.

So being self employed and flexible is a big step towards freedom for myself.

The Ocean gives me freedom.

Being truly free is a mind set, its when we are able to have positive thoughts and keep calm in the most difficult and stressful situations.

It's easy to keep positive, when things are going well, but our mental strength is challenged for real, when things get complicated.

Panic, stress, anger, fear are feelings which often appear, when the shit hits the fan.

So be prepared for these kind of emotions, while we are down its good to remember and visualize the moments when we were up and high on life, if we do so, we will easily realize that forward is the only direction we can follow, while climbing back up the latter of life.

Because better times will always come, much sooner than we expect.

Sometimes its important to reflect.

Life is like our heartbeat or a roller coaster its filled with ups and downs, its never linear, the hills are not in our control, but its up to us to define our state of mind, its up to us to adapt ourselves to the up and the downhills.

So lets keep our thoughts positive our mind clear and our hearts open and most importantly lets not depend our happiness on other people. 

Its up to us to be happy and not up to other people to make us happy.

Love, trust and happiness is inside of us, looking for love in other people is like going cliff fishing with bare hands without a fishing rod, if we have a fishing rod the fish will eventually come to us and we will catch it. 

The saying meet you half way has its accuracy when it comes to love & relationships, the effort has to come from both parts.

A one way street will always be a noway street for one of the sides.

If we have love for us then we will have love for others.

If you're not having fun, you're not living.

One of the things I learned is that we shouldn´t take life too seriously, its good to set goals and tasks, but never forget that in the end, its not what we take with us, its all about what we have experienced, the wealth inside of us, what we have truly lived, that's what matters.

On our deathbeds we will remember all the good things we lived,  we won´t remember the situations where we decided to take risks, in order to be able to experience those good things.

Also we will have regrets, from the situations where we didn´t go for it, where we didn´t follow through and took a chance.

So if you feel right about something, but you aren´t sure if you should do it or not, do it anyway! 

Tomorrow might be too late.

I don´t want to have many "what if.." dejavues, when I get old, how about you?

Freedom is easier in the sun.

I tend to see life more and more as a game, play it light but with heart and soul. Use your instincts, your mind when necessary but be true to yourself, to your morals and believes.

Don´t demand respect from others, if you don´t respect yourself.

It´s not about how others see you, it´s about how you see yourself and how you treat yourself.

Pleasing and living for others only stimulates your ego, being selfless is helping others and yourself without expecting anything in return and that is being truly free.

As usual a final quote:

"Freedom is not about the final destination, its all about the journey. Be wise while choosing your path.”

Alex Wirthl, Praia do Carvoeiro, 2014

Expectations

So I've been back home now for nearly 2 months, the 5 months trip was the trip of my life.

So many experiences, so many new friends and most importantly I finally got over myself, I have no more problems to be alone, wether to travel in a foreign country or just to be anywhere on my own..

Finally I found the peace of mind and realized that there's no need to be scared of life or to be afraid what other people might think.

So back to Portugal, its been great times so far, met so many new people, old friends, people came to visit and we've been having heaps of fun.

My usual morning view and juice.

My mum left to England and she's going to buy a place in Hawaii sometime soon, so I'll guess my family ties in Portugal will be extincted soon

This makes me think a lot and I came to the conclusion, that I don't want to spend anymore depressing winters in Europe.

My heart longs to be in the sun in the heat far away from all the rain and all the gray windy days.

So I guess in fall I will be back on the road, if everything goes as I am planning.

So when I got back from my trip, a couple of people, came up to me and gave me head ups for my travels and adventures they followed my blog and my social media sites.

Also a couple of mates contacted me to get some fitness tips, most of them know me for a long time so they could tell by the photos and videos about my evolution.

Its an achievement for me to inspire other people in a positive way so I gladly helped them the best I could, its really not a big secret about improving our physiques:

• 75% depends on what we eat.
• 25% depends on how much we exercise.

So this was really very positive, of course there were also negative comments and approaches from people, like “what are you gonna do with your future”, or one time I was sitting at night in a bar and a guy asked me where my muscle shirt was.

I guess people always tend to point fingers at others, its so much easier to criticize the neighbor than to get our fat asses up and change ourselves.

One guy told me: “When I am 50 my bank account will look much better than yours”, well have fun with your money, your cars, your houses, your stuff... Because I am not worrying about whats gonna be when I am 50, I prefer to enjoy whats happening right now and I listen to my heart when it comes to living, not my mind or what society wants me to be.

At work.

Of course its important to work, have an income and have goals, there's no doubt about that, but I'd rather be a free traveler with an average income, than a corporate slave or just daddy's son who never really worked for anything in life.

It feels wonderful having this balance in living a healthy life with a good diet and an active lifestyle but also I don't forget to feed my soul, my imagination and my thoughts with positivity.

My home beach.

I am single now for over a year and I must say it feels good not to be constantly looking and searching for a partner. I just live my day by day with an open heart, meeting new people and not giving other people any expectations.

I think expectations are the worst, its so important to be honest and fair to each other, even if its often not the easiest way, trust me its the right one. Truth in the end always wins.

As usual I am gonna finish my post with a quote:

“Take a seat and expect or take a step and act”.

Alex Wirthl, Praia do Carvoeiro, 2014 

Karma

Bali is the Island of Karma, its native inhabitants are of the Hindu Religion and they strongly believe in it. Its a life philosophy for most of them which they follow quite accurately.

Apart of the surfing one of the main reasons to return so many time to this island was the peaceful Hindu Religion. 

I also believe in the Karma philosophy and I try hard to follow it on a daily basis in every possible situation, even though my ego sometimes crosses my plans and seduces me to act out of pure selfishness.

Young Balinese girls at a Hindu Procession.

When it comes to Surfing I get quite greedy sometimes. Especially when I am confident about a wave I start acting like a fool, which is not good, afterwards I regret my actions and apologies are expressed.

There is a very true saying in Portuguese which says “ As desculpas não se pedem, evitam-se” which means “You shall not ask for apologies you shall avoid them (in the first hand)”.

One of my "greedy moments".

So its a good learning process for me to be more of an altruist and share waves with others, instead of wanting to take them all.

This kind of thinking is also easy to put in practice generally in life.

If you are positive and share, then good things will come to you, but if you decide to be selfish and greedy, you definitely someday will meet someone who is even a bigger jerk than you. A hungry shark always finds a bigger shark and ends up being eaten.

Pulling in Padang Padang.

Anyway I have been really blessed the last couple of weeks, Padang Padang my favorite wave on earth, has been pumping lately. Its been delivering unreal barrels, I've rarely seen colors and shapes like that, nature's perfection is just unbelievable.

But its also been quite busy and when there are a lot of surfers and a limited amount of waves, people tend to get competitive and aggressive in the water its unavoidable.

I am no exception, you easily start getting stressed when you are out there and do not get any waves. You start paddling harder, you sit deeper and you give others nasty looks. 

People actually told me several times that I am a specialist in giving people dark looks, so one of my missions presently is to change that. How? Avoid dark looks, have positive thoughts and smile more.

This wave makes me smile.

This morning I went surfing at 5 am, it was still dawn, I so wanted to get the chance to surf some waves, without having to battle with all the crowds, so I went super early. When I paddled out the moon was still out, huge and big and the sun still far away from coming up.

There was only one guy out surfing.

I saw this first big set of waves rolling in, so I paddled in position and took off, the wave was pretty solid around 6 ft / 2meters and I made the first section but got badly caught on the second where the wave closed out on me I was dragged across the reef and hit my lower head, chest and right arm on it.

When I got back up, I noticed that two of my front tooth were partly broken and that I was bleeding quite bad around my chin, I had a big cut on the left side of my chest and I was feeling miserable, I started chatting with the other guy and he said it did not look that bad that I needed stitches, so I decided to stay and try to get a couple of more waves, the bleeding on my head would not stop and my modjo for the surf session was gone.

When the sun was coming up we were already around 6 guys and another guy joined us, without even greeting us he paddled straight to the peak and started hunting waves. This is considered in the surfing etiquette “sneaking” which is disrespectful.

Usually everyone waits for its turn, just as if you were at the cashier at the supermarket. But this guy did not care, so he was taking one wave and paddling straight to the first spot again, when he caught his second wave, he wiped out and broke his board, guess this was Karma at its best.

After that incident I got one more little wave and went back in, I decided to go to a Hospital just to be sure I had nothing serious.

I ended up getting a couple of stitches, they removed a couple of reef pieces out of my body and I had to get two vaccines due to the danger of infections.

At the Hospital

So what did I learn from all this?

Well there's a lot of waves and possibilities in life, lets be patience and its important to act selfless too.

As usual I am gonna end this post with a quote, which for a change is mine:

"When it comes to life leave your weapons at home and bring your smiles to the journey."

Alex Wirthl, Bali 2014

Friendship

So its been over 3 months that I have been traveling.

I've met so many different people on this journey and most of them have been enriching my soul in a special way, inspiring me and changing me as a person.

Its easy to connect with people, while you travel, everyone is in a positive mood and with an open heart, that’s why we travel right?

I travel to see new places, to learn about new cultures and to meet old and new friends.

And there's this constant need inside of me, to become a better person, to be more respectful, more educated and most of all to be more patient.

Patience is something important to me, its hard sometimes to keep my temper, specially if factors like heat, hunger and sickness are involved and come together all at the same time.

In many moments, these new friends helped and taught me to deal with different type of situations and showed me that it is not worth it to act in an irritated or aggressive way, it will not turn things easier it will only difficult things even more.

I never really had a lot of friends in my life, when I say friends I don’t mean acquaints who I just briefly met. I mean people I have real connections with.

I always had the need to give something to my friends, so that they would stay and hang out with me. That has been changing over the years after figuring out for myself that friendship should not only rely on giving, it should depend on giving and taking.

On this journey I've met people from different countries and cultures, experienced quite some adventures with some of them and made friends for a lifetime.

I am still in touch with the ones I have a connection with and I will hopefully see them again sometime.

So these days I am in Bali, been here now for over 2 weeks,

The first week in Bali was not nice, I got sick and felt quite bad, I was completely alone and had no one to help me.

I felt worse by the hour, so I went to a private hospital where they made a complete blood test, I had strong pain in my eyeballs which is a major symptom for Dengue Fever.

I was very relieved when the test results were negative for Malaria and Dengue Fever, it was just a simple cold, with fever and dizziness, so I rested another 2 days and then moved to a Surf Camp.

The Surf Camp pool by night.

The camp has been amazing, I live in a pretty cool Villa with a couple of surfers and our schedule consists in waking up very early, at around 6am we drive straight to the best spot, where we surf for 2 hours, then we refill our energy with some typical indonesian food at a local warung (beach restaurant) so that we are able to surf a second session afterwards.

After the second surf its lunch time, so we generally drive to a place close to the beach where we have some food and then we get back to the villa to rest a bit.

In the afternoon we go for a third surf sometimes, so imagine how my body feels these days.

The heat, the salty water and the sun, forces us to drink a lot of water and eat a lot during the whole day, I am basically hungry 24/7, I've been eating cakes, pizza, bread and other unhealthy things everyday, but my body craves for carbs, its crazy.

Having a coffee in the morning while enjoying this view.

So I have two more days then I am moving back to my hotel, which will be good, I miss working and going to the gym, so soon I'll be back at that.

Doing what I love.

Tomorrow we are going to a beach where I've already been and where I met a special friend, its a little puppy who is roughly 3 weeks old, after surfing I picked her up from the floor, where she was sleeping next to my board.
I took her on my lap where she slept for about an hour, while we were having food and drinks, waiting for the surf conditions to get better.

I asked the lady at the beach restaurant for some milk and so I prepared a little bowl and gave her the milk, she absolutely loved it and was drinking furiously.
She is just such a cutie, it was really hard to leave her there, but I spoke to the owners of the restaurant and they told me that they would feed her and take care of her.
I will be back there tomorrow and I will definitely give her some milk and cuddle her if she is around.

I always had this special connection with dogs, maybe it has to do with the fact that my chinese astrology sign is dog, but honestly dogs generally love me and I love them, so it was nice to meet her, made me miss a bit less my little dog at home.

She was so tired.

 

And she didn't even notice when I prepared the milk for her.

Once she woke up the milk was pure joy for her.

So what I learned so far about friendship is that it really does not have any nationality, any race or eye color, its all a question of having an open heart and getting to know each other.

I hope you guys keep your heart open for new friendships, thats what I try to do...

“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”

– Paramahansa Yogananda

My Bag

So recently I found out that I like writing, thus the idea of doing a blog.
My friend Marta from shantifreebird.blogspot.pt, asked me to write a guest post for her, which was my first post about my travels and my life journey in general and I have to say I quite enjoyed writing it.

This is where I spent today, Tonsai Beach, Thailand.

Its good in life to travel light, I always organize my bag so that the essentials fit into it, I try to avoid unnecessary stuff, because it will turn the bag heavy and traveling will become harder.


I always try to be wise with my choices and I am not only referring to things which I take with me.
My state of mind is also very important, its good to have a light and open heart while traveling! I also try to be spontaneous while getting on the road, open for new adventures and unique experiences, unforgettable acquaintances with exceptional people, who will change my life.

My Backpack, my board and myself.

It used to be so difficult for me to let go in life. I am talking about personal relationships with people, things and money, etc.
In general it took me so much energy and thoughts to get over myself and to finally take a decision.
I had real problems whenever I was in a relationship in trusting my partner, I would always think she would cheat, lie and have bad thoughts about me. 
My insecurity usually ruined the relationship, so it would turn something beautiful into a dark unpleasant routine.




Nowadays I am on the way of getting calmer, I try to be wiser, reflect a lot about things and act in a more balanced way.

And most of all I have trust in myself, I can rely on me and I know that, I will not let me down, so all the doubts, fears and negative thoughts which I was projecting to my partner, but which in reality were fears that I had about myself are vanishing more and more, day by day. 
It takes its time, but I can compare this journey to climbing up a mountain, its the step by step which brings us to our final destination.

Mount Rinjani in Indonesia during a sunset.

Its in the day by day, in the small things, I notice that I am changing. 
People who know me, know my sense of humor and that I love to joke around and I still do that, but not by putting people down, as I used to do it a lot in the past, I still do jokes but in a respectful way, I don't want to hurt anyone, I just like to be genuinely myself without having to act that I am someone else.


So I am going to finish my first blog post with a line of a song of one of my favorite bands, I've used this line before and I am sure it won't be the last time I use it.



"Just be yourself It doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else". The Middle by Jimmy Eat World.

At a Jimmy Eat World Concert in 2011.