I had the opportunity to take the bus to Puerto Viejo (de Talamanca) this weekend. It was a bit of a stretch for me. I’d been there many times before, but had always driven my own car. This time I decided to take a stab at giving up (perceived) control and did the public transportation thing.

What I mean by control is that with my car I am able to better “protect” myself from unforeseen events. I don’t have to talk to anyone. I don’t have to worry as much about anyone stealing my backpack. And I can stop the car to eat or go to the bathroom whenever I want, and I can make it there in about three hours from my house.

With the bus, I have to prevent myself from drinking too much coffee so as not to have to pee, pack lighter and prepare for the unknown. Why? Because something always happens in Costa Rica! Thankfully, the only thing that happened on this trip was that I had to wait an hour and a half for the bus making my trip over 6 hours. Double what it would have taken in my car.

However, I was able to listen to an audio book, meet new people, watch out the window at the incredible view (and monkeys) and not have to worry about the bad roads giving me white knuckles and wear-and-tear on my car.

As spoiled as I am and as much as I like to complain, it was a great experience. The best part of it is hard to explain. I realized that I spend a lot of time subconsciously in my life “protecting” myself from the unknown. There was something really freeing about just getting out of the car and having to try something new.

Now some of you will think that sounds crazy because you already do much of that in your own lives. And to a certain extent I am able to do things like that as I moved to the daily “unknown” and “new” of Costa Rica in general.

The question I want to leave you with is this: In what ways do you think you prevent yourself from truly experiencing life?