After many years in Europe, I have decided to live in Mauritius. I have been very, very fond of the Indian Ocean for close to 25 years. The melting pot of African, European, and Asian cultures. The climate. Living on an island in the middle of a vast sea.
My decision was also driven by an ever-decreasing motivation to work in my professional field, namely information technology, mostly in enterprise environments. Less real engineering, more chatter. Less respect for quality work and concepts, more focus on just getting things up-and-running right now – and cheap.
And there are financial reasons. But it’s mostly my wish, and will, to start something anew. In a rather different environment. Break out of the humdrum, a new life, new challenges.
I have checked out other tropical locations, too, but at the end I chose Mauritius for its overall balanced pros and cons: people, economy, medical services, standards and cost of living. And did I say that I love the Indian Ocean?
No, I didn’t create any valuation spreadsheet. I have seen too many of these, both technical and financial, and their tunnel-vision inducing illusion of “facts” and “reality”.
So when the basic decision factors looked right, I needed to take the plunge, and now take it from there, by adaptation and creation. Only real-life experience will show how things work out.
PS, for nerds: ‘Life new: me’ is the instantiation of my new life, in Smalltalk parlance.