One simple yet MAHOOSIVE lesson that's completely changed my life over the last 16 months

An old skinny man plopped up at the bar and ordered a beer. What happened next shocked everyone, even the chef.

He was feeble framed. Body looked like an abandoned, dilapidated theme park in Finland. Hunched shoulders drooped and rolled and sagged forward. Arms and legs like frosty Winter twigs all awkwardly jumbled together. Shuffling around like catatonic over-cooked spaghetti. Vagabond vague.

Long greasy naff-show-room-carpet-grey hair jutted out his nut and folded over his neck like a willow tree covered in kebab house grease. His face was all squished like messy bed sheets of hot pink skin. Deep crevices crawled all over his face like rivers running through the Gran Canyon. Eyes JUMPED out the mangled bed sheets of flesh like jet-black torpedoes. In the corners of his snow white pupils vessels of blood crawled into the pupils like a Russian gunshot massacre.

Scabby blotchy sandals housed scabby blotchy feet. A sad tote bag drooped off his shoulders. Dark sweat pools oozed out his once pink and orange and blue tye die t shirt. Now it was a dead grey. Fading and fading and fading like his soul.

He ordered a beer. Then another. And another. And another.

I was hunkered in, a little Asian joint bolted onto the dusty road. The sorta place where you can see into the kitchen steamy cantankerous commotion. Plastic chairs. Plastic tables. Plastic menus. Cold beer. Spicy food.

Out the speakers hippitty-bip-itty and floaty-y-y-y-y running jazz danced, before mellowly melting in early evening Caribbean air.

I ordered Schiwan Chicken. A mess of vegetables and rice and chicken hole fucker was blitzed in Napalm Heat Schiwan. Agent Orange for ya-ring piece. Cold beads of sweat screamed down my hot face as I shovelled noodles daan me gob.

I thought to myself “this poor, poor man”.

A cute chubby coupled with oh so-wonderful dentist smiles walked in. All bubble-gum puckish, Candy-Floss happy. Checkered blue and white short sleeve shirts. Bumbags. Fresh sandals. Good ol’ Ahhh’Mericans. Probably 25, looked like a couple of chubby 5 year olds.

With haste the old man dropped his chopsticks and slowly cranked his neck and turned to the couple. Those Led Zepplin metal-black piercing eyes zonkIN out his face.

"How y'all doing?" "Awfully, fukin' out ere tonight ain't it - heeebeejesus, a’m sweatin’ ” "Whadda y'all think of the fire show last night, sure waz summin"

“Ma gollygosh, isn’ it just, we’re from Ohio, here for 2 weeks…whaddaya do ?”

For the next hour I sat there and watched the cinematic performance of human nature unfold.

Turns out this old feeble man made a shit load of money on Wall Street in New York

Turns out this old feeble man has a hugely successful holiday rental business in Costa Rica.

Turns out this old feeble man is waiting for his wife to arrive with the 6 grandkids to arrive.

Turns out this old feeble man surfs and runs every single day.

The biggest lesson over the past couple of years?

“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” Abraham Lincoln.

I am so quick to judge. So quick to assume I know everything about someone. I dislike this part of myself.

“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” Abraham Lincoln.

There’s a phrase everyone uses says out here. After you order a coffee or a beer or pick up a bill or rent a surfboard.

“Pura Vida”.

The meaning of pura vida, of course, is “pure life,” and it's come to symbolise the simple, cheerful outlook and lifestyle of what is often called the happiest country in the world.

Still Hungry? Course you are…

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