Thoughts on 2019

As 2019 comes to a close, I thought it would be nice to reflect on how the year went on a personal level. It definitely was an intense one!

The main highlight of 2019 is that my girlfriend and I left Spain and moved to Estonia. Why would we leave the sunny paradise that is Mallorca for the eternal dark and gloom of a Northern country? There were a couple of reasons:

  • Our quality of life had significantly decreased in the last few years. I attribute this to a combination of several factors; mainly: oversaturation in the number of people living in the island pushing the environment and real state market to dangerous levels of "hot, crowded and expensive", and general dissatisfaction with how things are being handled in the country on a social and political level.
  • We felt the need to "reset" our lives, in several ways. Seeing new places, meeting new people, learning new things. Which you can certainly do by travelling and not necessarily moving to a new country permanently! But we also thought it would be interesting for us to move to a country in Northern Europe that might be more aligned with our needs and values and that we could establish as our home base.

Do not get me wrong: Spain is a beatiful country to live in and there is so much to love about it. I really think that, if people realized that and truly wanted to transform the country (starting by choosing decent politicians and fighting for actual changes in a terribly malfunctioning, obsolete system), it could be so much more powerful and attractive. Also, I miss my family every day. But, still, it was time for us to go.

Estonia was the perfect choice for us. It is a beautiful country with incredible natural environments, bureaucracy is minimal and everything can be done digitally, there are new apartments and homes at affordable rates that are perfectly equipped, and the facilities to start and run a company are very hard to beat. I will write in more detail about all this in the future.

A nice extra is that we are now only a 2-hour ferry away from Finland, which makes us closer to our Finnish family. We spent the Christmas holidays with them and had an amazing time. It was a white Christmas, which made the experience even better! Snow and sauna are the best.

By the end of September, we sold everything and left. It was a weird feeling having no return flight booked, and there is a crazy amount of things that need to be taken care of when you move to a new country. Like, really crazy. It is only now that we are starting to feel the weight of such an intense process in our minds and bodies. At the same time, it is very liberating to move to zero possessions and it has made us crave a more minimalistic lifestyle. We are finally starting to settle in and looking forward to our new life in Estonia.

Work-wise, this was the most successful year for our company. We are very grateful for having the opportunity to work on many different projects and doing so on our own terms. We want to keep on learning, keep on improving and keep on helping people accomplish their digital dreams.

Irrespective of one's individual beliefs, it is hard to argue that 2019 was a complicated year for the world as a whole. A worrying increase in the dramatic effects of climate change, turbulent politics across the globe and a shaky but ever increasing economy that is seemingly not crashing only because the powers that be are not letting it do not paint a pretty picture of what is coming in the next few years. I truly hope we do better in 2020, because it really feels like our future depends on it more than it ever did before.

Thank you for reading and have a lovely new year! ❤