“I arrived in Costa Rica looking for direction. Instead, I found relief from needing it.”

“Hablas Espanol?”

“Huh?” I looked up at the immigration officer.

“Hablo poco Espanol.”

He looked over my passport, stamped it, looked up at me, and said, “Pura Vida.”

I had just landed in San Jose.

As I shuffled through the airport, I looked around and felt a little uneasy without a clear purpose for being there. We headed to the currency exchange. I had rented a car for the week, so we weren’t limited on where we could go. No solid plans, just ideas.

My girlfriend drove first. I stared out the window as we made our way through the congested streets of the country’s capital. Motor bikes weaved in and out of cars, squeezing by with only inches to spare. It was kind of impressive—skills that only come from years of practice.

As we approached a left turn, suddenly everything was chaos. Somehow all the cars on the road were converging, turning a single turn lane into four turn lanes. My eyes were scanning, and my brain was trying to comprehend how this was going to have a positive outcome.

“What the hell is going on?” I thought.

My second thought was, “This is a representation of my thoughts.”

Always trying to bring order to the chaos.

I laughed quietly to myself, but I was still curious how this was going to pan out. Somehow it worked itself out, though not without some aggressive driving. I was shocked that no one seemed angry. Back home, horns would have been blaring.

I quickly came to realize that my style of driving was going to fit like a glove in Costa Rica.

The strange thing was that a month earlier, I knew exactly why I was coming. The trip had started as an opportunity to evaluate a business acquisition and whether it might become part of my future.

But somewhere between planning the trip and boarding the plane, that purpose disappeared.

I waited on the owner for answers that would ultimately outline my stay in the country, but those answers came last minute. The delay triggered a thought I couldn’t ignore. If something this important wasn’t being prioritized, maybe that lack of urgency, attention to detail, and follow-through was embedded in the business itself.

That wasn’t the kind of opportunity I was looking for.

By the time I boarded the flight, the decision had already been made. I wasn’t coming to evaluate a business anymore.

The problem was that I hadn’t figured out what I was coming for instead.

We spent the next four hours winding our way south. The city eventually gave way to small towns, stretches of jungle, and roads that seemed to disappear into the mountains. By the time we reached our hotel, the sun had already set. We grabbed dinner, spent some time in the pool, and called it a night.

For the first time in months, there was nowhere I needed to be the next morning and nothing I needed to accomplish.

I woke up to cool air blowing down from the dripping A/C unit mounted above me. I stretched out until my feet were dangling off the small bed I had spent the night in.

It was about 6:30 a.m.

What should we do today? I thought to myself.

I remembered we had been making our way south along the coastline. There must be a beach nearby.

A little research landed me on Marino Ballena National Park—the Whale Tail Beach.

“Wake up! We have to get going.”

“I found a beach with a sandbar we can walk across to an island, but the tide is rising. We have to hurry.”

I had looked up the tide chart, and low tide had already passed. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

We hurried out of the hotel and stopped at a little shop for some fruit and a cup of coffee that would serve as breakfast to go.

As we walked down the beach, I could see the island in the distance, but the sandbar was submerged beneath the ocean’s blue crashing waves.

“Looks like we might have missed it.”

“I’m going to try and make it across. If it gets too crazy, I’ll come back. You don’t have to come.”

She was game.

We started the trek right through the center where waves from two sides of the ocean collided together where the sandbar existed.

I was assessing the risk as we moved farther toward the island. I looked back at the beach behind us and noticed a few onlookers who seemed either concerned or shocked at our attempt.

“I’d rather be in the game than on the sidelines,” I thought.

“Are you good? It’s getting rougher, but we can make it!” I shouted.

She seemed a little concerned, but pressed on. Determination outweighed doubt as we crept closer to the land ahead.

A few minutes later, we took our first steps onto the island.

We were the only ones there.

The only ones who had taken the chance.

I turned around and looked back across the ocean toward the beach we had started from. Dense jungle lined the shoreline behind it, stretching into the distance. Waves crashed against the sandbar that had carried us across.

I stood there for a moment taking it all in.

The ocean.

The jungle.

The mountains in the distance.

The silence.

It was well worth it.

Standing there, I realized how unusual the last twenty-four hours had been. A few weeks earlier, every part of this trip had a purpose attached to it. Now I had somehow ended up on an island I hadn’t planned to visit, with no schedule to follow, no business to evaluate, and nowhere else I needed to be.

We grabbed a smoothie from an elderly woman running a small stand out of a cooler beneath the shade of a tin roof, jumped in our micro 4×4, and hit the road. We were heading farther south into a more remote part of the jungle.

We navigated rough dirt roads and pushed the Suzuki Jimny up steep hills as we talked and laughed. The farther we drove, the farther removed I felt from my normal routine. We were well off the beaten path, and I felt more relaxed than I had in quite some time.

Eventually, we arrived at a small village tucked between the jungle and the bay. Dense green mountains rose behind it while the ocean stretched out in front.

From there, we made the climb to our lodging where we would spend the next few nights.

The treehouse-like accommodation sat on a steep hillside overlooking the bay, surrounded by jungle in every direction. It was simple. Secluded. Peaceful.

Perfect.

We explored the tiny room and laughed when we realized the shower was completely exposed to the outdoors.

“This is awesome,” I said. “We get to shower outside.”

We sat on the deck overlooking the bay, watching the sun set. The day slipped away into a canvas of color.

It was beautiful.

As the sun disappeared, the orchestra of the jungle came alive.

We sat there a while longer, immersed in the song of nature.

It was mesmerizing.

We eventually headed down the ninety-nine steps from our treehouse to the dirt road below. We were off to meet a local guide who would be taking us on a hike through the dense jungle in the dark.

When we arrived, we were handed muck boots and flashlights. Our guide had spent more than a decade navigating the jungles and national parks of Costa Rica. He headed off, and we followed.

It was hot, and the humidity was smothering.

Right away, I noticed how knowledgeable he was. A sound would echo through the jungle, and he would immediately identify the creature that made it. Somehow, he could then pinpoint its location and guide us directly to it.

Everything from poison dart frogs and tree frogs to snakes, scorpions, and spiders. All the things you would normally try to avoid in the jungle, we were actively searching for.

Our guide was also an excellent photographer and captured some incredible photos for us using our phones.

As we tromped through creeks and climbed slopes through the trees with our flashlights guiding each step, I found myself completely immersed in the moment.

I wasn’t thinking about the business.

I wasn’t thinking about work.

I wasn’t thinking about what came next.

My thoughts were limited to things like:

“What made that sound?”

“I wonder what we’ll find next?”

For three and a half hours, that was enough.

And somehow, it felt like freedom.

The next morning, we were off on our next adventure.

We met a man in a beat-up white pickup truck who would take us to meet Carlos, our local guide for a full day in the primary jungle. We bounced around in the truck as he navigated the rocky, washed-out roads ahead.

Eventually, we pulled up to a homestead. An older man emerged from the trees with a cigarette hanging from his lip.

“Hola, I’m Carlos!”

My first thought was, This is the guy who’s taking us on an eight-hour tour through the remote jungle?

I wasn’t sure about him.

Eventually, my skepticism faded.

Carlos was more than physically capable and had spent most of his life as a biologist. He was the kind of salt-of-the-earth person who was easy to connect with. He was passionate about preserving the environment and even spent his free time cleaning eleven kilometers of beach through a small organization he had started himself.

He was the kind of guy I could get behind.

We made our way through untouched, overgrown jungle. We examined vines the size of tree trunks, ate termites, and watched monkeys play among the canopy above us.

Eventually, we came to a waterfall that provided the perfect opportunity to cool off.

We obliged.

When we climbed out of the water, Carlos had fruit cut up and waiting for us from his own garden. Mango, pineapple, and several fruits I had never seen before.

It was probably the best fruit I had ever eaten.

We sat on rocks at the edge of the river and talked about our passions, frustrations, and life in general. It opened a window into who Carlos really was and made me appreciate him even more.

Eventually, we continued our journey and came to a river.

“It’s diaper time,” Carlos said.

I looked at him, confused.

He instructed us to put our legs through the armholes of our life jackets like a diaper and hop into the flowing river.

We were off.

We floated downstream on our backs for what felt like two hours. It offered an entirely new perspective of the jungle. I stared up at the towering trees as patches of sky drifted past openings in the canopy overhead.

Carlos and my girlfriend gradually floated farther ahead of me until I could no longer see them or hear them.

I just let them go.

I drifted quietly down the river, staring up through the canopy as raindrops splashed across my face.

For once, I wasn’t trying to get anywhere.

I wasn’t thinking about what came next.

I wasn’t thinking about work.

I wasn’t thinking about the business.

I was simply there.

Completely relaxed.

Without a care in the world.

Eventually, the river carried us to the ocean.

As I approached the shoreline, I could see Carlos and my girlfriend standing on the beach, taking in the scenery.

When I stepped onto the sand, I realized this wasn’t a place many people had ever stood.

It was remote.

Untouched.

The kind of place I always find myself searching for when I’m in nature.

Looking back, what stands out most about Costa Rica isn’t any single experience.

It wasn’t the island.

It wasn’t the jungle.

It wasn’t the wildlife.

It wasn’t even floating down the river.

It was the absence of something.

The absence of urgency.

The absence of planning.

The absence of needing an answer.

I arrived in Costa Rica because a plan had fallen apart.

For weeks, the trip had been attached to a potential future. There were questions to answer and decisions to make. Then, before I ever boarded the plane, the decision was made for me.

The opportunity was gone.

What remained was a trip without a purpose.

At least that’s how it felt at first.

For most of my life, I’ve attached purpose to movement.

The next goal.

The next opportunity.

The next decision.

The next step.

Even the difficult seasons had a mission attached to them. There was always something to fix, build, solve, pursue, or overcome.

Costa Rica was different.

None of it was moving me closer to a goal.

Yet somehow, I felt more present than I had in a long time.

Somewhere between the island, the treehouse, the jungle, and the river, I stopped asking what came next.

I stopped trying to extract something from the experience.

I stopped searching for a purpose for every moment.

I simply experienced it.

The irony is that I went to Costa Rica looking for direction.

Instead, I found relief from needing it.

Maybe that’s what I needed all along.

Not another answer.

Not another opportunity.

Not another plan.

Just a reminder that life doesn’t always have to be moving toward something to have value.

Sometimes the destination disappears.

Sometimes the plan falls apart.

Sometimes the next step isn’t clear.

And that’s okay.

Because not every season requires a mission.

Some seasons are meant to be lived.

As I think back to that immigration officer stamping my passport and saying, “Pura Vida,” I can’t help but smile.

At the time, it was just a phrase.

By the end of the trip, it felt more like an invitation.

For a few days, I stopped trying to force direction.

I stopped worrying about what came next.

And for the first time in a while, that was enough.