Visiting the Lonely Islands – A Quest to Happiness

Which three things would you take to a lonely island?

As kids, we often asked each other this question trying to find the important things in life. Our answers reached from practical survival items, like a good knife, to keys for emotional happiness like bringing your best buddy or a book (nowadays probably your smartphone) with you.

Last week, for the first time in my life, I stepped my foot on a real lonely island. I booked a five-day catamaran tour from Panama to Colombia, including three days in the San Blas Islands, which are a group of 360 paradise like Caribbean coral islands. The islands are gorgeous. Made out of pure white sand, the smallest islands hold space for only a bunch of coconut palm trees, while the bigger ones take about 15 minutes of walking to circle around. 40 islands are inhabited by small families of indigenous Kuna people, whom sell their colorful artwork to tourists. Some of the islands are surrounded by incredible coral reefs, which invite for hours of snorkeling.

We somehow associate islands like the San Blas with one of the best places to be on earth. Pictures of super clean green-blue water surrounding white palm tree beaches are the ultimate trigger for wanderlust for many people. For me, the lonely island turned out to be mainly one thing: Lonely. 

For the first time during my travel, I felt homesick

We were siting on the catamaran, finishing a delicious lobster dinner and getting ready to go out to one of the islands to drink some beers and hang out with the crew of another catamaran. The music – this time played by the Israeli guy who just joined the boat – played some of my favorite songs. I suddenly got caught by a strong and almost depressive feeling of loneliness. I did not feel like going out at all. I felt strongly disconnected from all the people around me and I found myself homesick for the first time during my travel. I had bad days before on my travels, but now I sincerely wished to be at back home eating dinner with my family, sitting in a bar drinking a beer with a good friend or being at a dance event enjoying the connection of couple dancing. I felt deeply sad and unhappy about my situation.

That night I went to bed early, asking myself:

How can it be, that I feel the worst within, while being at the most beautiful place without?

To answer that question let me go a couple of years back, when I again spent a day on a boat. This time in Switzerland, on lake Geneva, with some of my friends with which I used to share a lot of discussions about life and particularly Christian faith. During the trip, my friend Melina asked the group “What means being happy for you?”. As the discussion in the group emerged, I started brainstorming on a napkin. Surprisingly quickly, I came up with three key points for me to feel happy:

Life Situation & Life Style

This key basically means “how things are going for me”. It covers physical and emotional health, financial and relational situation as well as the current challenges and blessings I experience. My feeling is that many people refer to life situation when talking about happiness. I could have posted pictures of me on the San Blas islands on facebook, showing off my great life situation, and everyone would have thought I was having the best time of my life – while I really was not.

Purpose & Meaning

This key describes a feeling that “my life is meaningful” or “I feel fulfilled”. It is about experiencing life as something deeply meaningful and real. Many religious or spiritual people I meet gain this through a belief that their life has a specific purpose. That there is an idea or plan behind their life. Others find meaning in working for a higher goal or serving others, while again others seem to find meaning in the simple act of everyday life. If I personally do not experience meaning in my life, I can observe myself becoming more superficial, creating drama out of banalities and the feeling of having a “shallow life”.

Inner Peace & Trust

This key describes a feeling of “trust and love towards myself and life”. It is about loving myself and being deeply content with who I am. For me this is the source of true self-confidence which highly increases the feeling of happiness. It also covers a positive attitude, or better said, a deep trust towards life. In my life, a lack of inner peace and trust results in a deep but often hidden feeling of restlessness and being anxious and nervous.

The three keys influence each other, but I find them mostly independent. Some people have horrible life situations, but still feel happy to a high degree as they have found a purpose and trust in life. In my last blog post How I use Pain to Transform my Life, I wrote about the negative impact physical pain has on my life situation, but at the same time increases my inner peace and trust. I concluded I am actually happier than before I started having health issues.

But let me go back to being homesick in paradise:

As I sat on the catamaran driving to Colombia (I would like to write sailing, but there was no wind at all), I reflected on these keys and asked myself: “So what am I missing?”. My life situation is, apart from some health issues, obviously great. And inner peace doesn’t change within a few hours or days, it is actually the key which changes slowly and therefore stays the most consistent. So I am left with meaning.

Connecting to people is the most fulfilling and meaningful thing in life for me. By connecting I mean being positively impacted by someone or having a positive impact on someone, whether emotional or inspirational. During the sailing trip, almost all conversations were small talk peppered with way too many (though funny) jokes of one of the passengers – a two-meter tall drug dealer with the posture of a rugby player who was constantly on cocaine. We had an “ok” group, but I did not feel I really connected to any of the other passengers. This lack of connection led to a feeling of shallowness – the opposite of meaning – and then to loneliness triggering being homesick. Without this connection to the people I was surrounded with, I found it even hard to really enjoy the natural beauty around me.  After all, I learned that in the future, I am going to search less for great places, but more for great people.

A last word on the three keys: This is not a universal model, but rather one for myself which helped me searching and prioritizing happiness. Two weeks ago I shared it with my friend Stacia (read here about her own Nicaragua adventures), asking what her keys are. She came up with three different keys, which I found super fascinating. If the model makes you think about your own keys and definition of being happy, please share your thoughts with me either by comment or via a message. My last post about health has triggered some great conversations – I would love it if that happens on this topic too.

Header and other San Blas images by my new swiss friend Anika. Thank you!