Great article

I read a lot of stuff like this about people who sell everything and take off in search of a different lifestyle. My husband and I are putting our condo on the market next week and doing something similiar as soon as it sells. I was fascinated by this when I found it yesterday and devoured all four of the articles he has written. Very interesting perspective.

I appreciate how the author points out that Americans have and use so much but don't really appreciate it.

I did find it frustrating when he wrote "We have been drinking more than usual lately. Our brew of choice is Pacifico. We are running out of money and are unable to do anything about it. "

I see this far too often. People supposedly don't have enough to food or rent but yet can afford booze, cigs, or weed. The cognitive disconnect that allows that just baffles me.

""We have been drinking more than usual lately. Our brew of choice is Pacifico. We are running out of money and are unable to do anything about it. We have less than a months rent money left and work is coming in much much slower than needed. So we drink beer to relax while we can and ignore the freight train of destitution bearing down on us. However, drinking beer in Mexico is not cheap.

The average worker has to work a little over an hour to earn enough to get one quart of beer. We both are aware of the irony of our spending money on beer to help us relax and stop worrying about money. The toughest thing for me is not knowing what to do about our situation. Legally I cannot work here, but I know I will have to, regardless of the consequences. I have never felt so helpless and without options."

I did see that and was going to mention it but apparently got too excited and hit 'post' too quickly. Thanks for pointing it out.

The fact that he recognizes it is good, but doesn't help much. He calls it irony, when it isn't, but still does it even though he recognizes it is problematic.

on his primary view of himself having been a creature of reason and not emotion.

His stay in Mexico is a journey of self-realization on multiple levels.

I like that he was honest about it. That's part of what I found so interesting about all of his articles on the subject-he is so honest. I read a lot of stuff like this and often get the feeling that people are whitewashing things and painting themselves as the noble hero of a grand adventure. Plus, the passage you are referring to occurred during a brief period when they were feeling particularly low. It's not like he sat around for months drinking up every penny he made.

Thanks for the thread, pamela.

I definitely thought it was a "good read" and thought there were folks here who would appreciate it. Glad you liked it. Read his other articles that he linked at the bottom if you get the chance. Some of the comments are great, especially the ones from the wingnuts that misunderstood his sarcasm in one article and thought he was an illegal immigrant in America from Mexico. Priceless stuff.

I can see some grim future scenario in the U.S. when primary traffic across the border might be reversed.

Perhaps it's just a personal sense of national claustrophobia, or a subconcious coloring by a "land of the free," mental image but I hate walls.

Peace to you, pamela.

My only comment would be to say that it shouldn't take a year and a half to bring your foreign language up to an acceptable level. The Peace Corps language training program is 4 hours a day for 3 months, and they bring their volunteers up to an acceptable level. But that takes a little structure (provided by a teacher) and a lot of effort on the part of the student.

Anyone planning on doing this (and having done it myself, I highly recommend it), you need to make an investment in learning the language. It doesn't have to cost a lot in terms of money, but it should be a big investment in terms of time and effort. One of the big advantages of being a native English speaker is that English is the language of world commerce and people the world over want to learn it. It's very easy to trade off lessons in English for lessons in the local language.

The simple life is very tempting at times.