hello all!

[lucas]

Hi there everyone!

My name's Lucas... I'm a 37-year-old guy living in Spain (I'm from Ireland originally)... I'm really pleased to have found this forum.. I've been reading a lot of your posts and I find it all really interesting and inspiring...

Like a lot of people here, I was a 'good' consumer for many years, buying all the useless rubbish the ad-men told me I needed, and wondering why it wasn't giving me the joy it seemed to give the actors in the advertisements... I'm ready for a change, so I've been making a start on getting rid of a lot of the stuff that's cluttering up my apartment and my life... I've also been meditating daily for over a year, and I've started to realise that if I want to make real progress within myself, I need to 'clean out' a lot of what I've got going on on the outside too...

Thanks everyone for being here and making this forum so vibrant... I look forward to 'getting to know' you (even if only within the limitations of the online world).. Thanks too to the moderators for making this meeting place possible... I'm excited to have found you!

All the best,
Lucas

[catherine]

Hi, Lucas!

Welcome! We are always so happy to hear from another like-minded person! I look forward to your thoughts and experiences! Sounds like you already have a lot to teach us...

We're all on various stages of the journey and even on different paths, but it truly is inspiring to hear what others have to say.

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

[Anne Lee]

Bienvenido!

Look forward to reading your posts.

[SiouzQ.]

Welcome Lucas! I agree, it is great to come here and find like-minded people. It helps keep me on track and accountable to myself.

[CathyA]

Hi Lucas! Welcome! Its good to have you here.

[Float On]

Welcome!!

[kally]

welcome. Spain must be interesting to live in, non? We have fun here and I have learned a lot. Stick around.

[Marianne]

Welcome!

[EarthSky]

Welcome, Lucas! Enjoy the great ideas and open minds on this forum!

[Spartana]

Hola Lucas. Que tal? What part of Spain do you live in? I lived in L'Estartit on the Costa Brava (They had a US Coast Guard station there and I had been in the CG) for about 8 months and loved it. Nothing better than the slow pace of a small fishing town in spain to appreciate the simpler things in life. Of course learning to eat dinner at midnight took a bit of getting use to! Are you travelling or living and working permanently in Spain? I heard the unemployment rate was something over 25% with some areas being 40% . Very tough on everyone there.

[Sad Eyed Lady]

Hello Lucas! Good to have you with us and look forward to future posts by you.

[loosechickens]

Hi Lucas......welcome...... as I said to you when we were messaging, my husband lived in Madrid for a year and has longed to go back there. He lived in the University district, I forget the street name, but I've heard for years about the "little bodega on the corner where you could take your one liter bottle and get it filled with great red wine for a pittance"....... so hope you are enjoying it as much as he did when there, zipping around on his little Vespa.......

It's a good community here, and we're always delighted to get new members scattered all over the world......it will be neat to get info from you on how life is in Spain, and how simple living translates there for you.

[lucas]

Thanks everybody for your kind welcome messages! I'm feeling really pleased to have found this community... this week has been a bit crazy, as I was despatched to Geneva for work... I'm glad to say I made a solid start on decluttering my home before I left though... nonethless, it will take a while for me to finish the job (it's amazing how much junk I've accumulated over the years!)... Tonight I finally have a few hours to myself, so I'm going to spend some time reading through the different sections and topics in the forums, and learning more from all your generous posts... it's great to be here! Thanks folks!

[lucas]

Hola Spartana... thanks for your message! It is indeed true that things are tough for a lot of people in Spain now... the whole country is paying the price for a decade of rampant, uncontrolled consumption! Unemployment in the 25 -35 age group is close to 50%! You may have seen some of the protests on the news... similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement, there's a great deal of frustration, and 15-M movement in Spain has been running since May this year...I'm lucky though, as I work in the field of poverty and human rights, and with deprivation rising fast, there seems to be greater demand for the kind of research my organization does (cruel irony!)... Anyway, thanks so much for your welcome message... I hope all is well with you... where do you live these days? Back in the US?

[IshbelRobertson]

Hello Lucas
I'm from one of the Celtic fringe countries of the UK, Scotland!

Slainte.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Welcome Lucas, glad to have you here! Nice to get some perspectives from other areas other than just North America.....I have always been fascinated by Spain, by the history, the culture, the people, the food, you name it.....And then when I saw my first Pedro Almodovar movie years ago I knew I had to get to Madrid someday.....Welcome, hope to hear more from you.

[Spartana]

[QUOTE=lucas;53285 I hope all is well with you... where do you live these days? Back in the US?[/QUOTE]

I currently live in Southern California about 50 miles from Los Angeles but am selling my house and leaving here this spring to do some long term travel around North America. Would love to do some long term travel in Europe again - especially Spain - but have a little dog so that will have to wait awhile. I have been watching the protests in Spain and have friends in Barcelona who are really struggling with the economic situation there. I'm hoping things turn around there soon - as well as the rest of Europe.

[lhamo]

Hi Lucas! Greetings from another forum member living as an expat. I'm originally from the US (Seattle area) but now live in China. Have been wanting to make a trip to Spain/Portugal for ages, and look forward to learning about your experiences there.

lhamo

[HappyHiker]

Greetings to you and a warm welcome. Traveling lightly through the world seems so freeing. May you find it so, too!

[Selah]

Cead mile failte, Lucas! I lived in Ireland for many years (Kells; Omeath, Co. Louth; Dun Laoghaire) and was there in the 90's when the housing bubble was getting bigger and bigger but hadn't yet popped. Ireland is going through a nasty hangover now, so to speak. Good luck in Geneva, and welcome to the boards.

I agree, meditation is a powerful tool for inner decluttering that leads to outer decluttering of life-- toxic relationships, unsatisfying jobs, useless possessions and all sorts of other distractions and attachments.

Welcome again!