chapter 28: too much of a good thing

how chasing my dream of becoming a professional diver made me appreciate the life I left behind

If you heard I’m living on a Caribbean island for two months, you might assume I’m living my best life, spending every day relaxing on the beach and enjoying the ocean.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Instead, I’ve never felt more exhausted and overworked in my life. I rarely regret anything because I try to view even the hardest situations as growth opportunities, but I’ve come close to feeling like coming here was a mistake.

I’m one month in and halfway done with my stint on the island of Utila off the coast of Honduras, and every week so far has been a rollercoaster of emotions.

Yes, there have been the emotional highs that you expect from living in the tropics with beautiful weather, daily dips in the ocean, and frequent dolphin sightings.

But there have also been emotional downward spirals more often than I could have anticipated.

why I came here in the first place

I chose to spend two months in the Caribbean for one main purpose: to earn my scuba divemaster certification and do something I love (diving) every day while experiencing life in a place quite unlike my former homes of New York and Los Angeles.

Utila is a small, remote island devoid of any typical tourism markers – no resorts, no crowds, no cruise ship ports, no cars – just lots and lots of scuba diving, at some of the cheapest prices in the world. The island has a reputation (thanks in part to a viral video from a decade ago) for being a place where people come just to get scuba certified, but then never end up leaving because they love it so much.

As someone who has loved diving enough to go on over 100 dives in the past two years, I assumed I would be like everyone who came before me and fall in love with this island paradise centered around my favorite hobby.

Unexpectedly, I’ve found myself wishing I didn’t already pay for my two-month apartment here and a non-changable flight home at the end of July.

Let me explain.

When I first arrived to Utila, I remember spending about thirty minutes walking down the main road in one direction until it just ended. After another thirty minutes in the opposite direction, I reached basically the end of the road again.

Especially as someone who took 48 flights last year and hasn’t stayed in one place for over a month in nearly two years, it hasn’t been easy to adjust to spending one month in a place where even things that are “far away” are hardly more than a mile from my apartment.

I’ve always enjoyed living in a major city, where hundreds of different places and faces offer countless options and constant stimuli. Or, when I’ve temporarily lived in less-bustling places like Florence, Italy or Bar Harbor, Maine, I’ve entertained myself through constantly taking day trips or weekend trips to other nearby places that offered the novelty I was seeking.

Perhaps I was overly optimistic that I could just suddenly code switch and enjoy staying in one place on a small island.

If you spend one week here, to me it seems like you’ve already spent a lifetime here because every week is the same routine of events: trivia at Tea Garden on Mondays, dancing at Tranquila Bar on Tuesdays, sushi night at Trudy’s on Thursdays, bingo night at Edo’s on Saturdays.

I enjoyed each of these events my first time, and think anyone who visits Utila for just a week would love their time here– but my life now feels like I’m living the same week over and over again, not because it’s really that much fun, but because there are no other options.

All this was enough to make me question the hype and wonder if I was missing something about the supposed irresistible longterm pull of this place.

my big, unexpected reality check

Once I started my divemaster training program, I experienced a true rude awakening: although I have loved diving recreationally and dreamed that one day I’d love to live the life of a scuba professional, getting paid to do something I love… this lifestyle actually feels like more of a nightmare than a dream to me.

Sure, it sounded great in concept to have the ocean as my “office,” to be able to do this expensive hobby of mine for free as much as I want, and actually get paid to do something that I enjoy.

But in reality, I’ve learned that working in the diving industry means constant early mornings, repetitive physical labor lugging heavy steel scuba tanks across the docks onto boats, working late into the evenings on night dives, saying goodbye to weekends and predictable schedules, and accepting that it’s never about you having a good time – it’s always about the client having a good time.

me and my daily physical labor of hauling tanks and tying up boats

Basically, I realized I really missed being the client having epic scuba adventures rather than being the professional doing all the work behind the scenes.

And perhaps my existing reference point of working in a highly-paid, mentally-intensive yet physically stagnant remote job in tech is to blame – but the effort-to-reward ratio of the hard physical labor required to earn less than $50 a day in diving, compared to how I typically earn more for just an hour of talking on a zoom call, simply does not add up for me.

After two weeks of training, not only was I tired from starting every day at 6am, but I was also fatigued from being in the sun all day, brain-drained from studying repetitive detailed requirements, and physically depleted from the manual labor of hauling heavy equipment.

the case for not turning your passion into a job

If I’m doing the same thing every single day – even if it’s something I usually love doing – it’s easy to get bored and lose the spark of what made it feel special and exciting in the first place.

For the past two years, I’ve always looked forward to my next opportunity to travel somewhere new and go diving surrounded by unfamiliar species and underwater environments. But for the past few weeks, I’ve hated to say it, but I found myself dreading having to wake up and go diving.

It was too much of a good thing.

I lost the thrill and the novelty of diving for pleasure.

When my passion turned into an obligation, the fire within me died.

I was straight up not having fun. I wanted to be, and I still really wish I could feel differently, but I can’t deny that I am just not enjoying the life of a scuba professional as much as I expected to.

I’m tired, and I’m bored.

And you know what?

It’s ok to not be having fun all the time.

It’s ok to be “living the dream” on an island and realize that maybe this isn’t actually your dream – it’s someone else’s dream.

And I’m a firm believer that you should never chase someone else’s dream.

my key realizations

I came here expecting to enjoy learning how to lead guided dives and assistant teach scuba courses as a way to monetize my (very expensive) hobby.

Instead, I’ve walked away with the epiphany that I am actually really appreciative of my established occupation as a knowledge worker in tech, where I can work remotely, have an abundance of free time, and earn enough money to travel and dive as a hobby without all the excessive physical labor and fatigue that a full time dive professional has to endure.

I’ve realized I truly value creative thinking and collaboration. While leading clients on a dive requires strictly sticking to a routine and following standards, my previous jobs have all required thinking outside the box, questioning the status quo, and creating things that previously didn’t exist. My one favorite part of working with scuba students has been the personal aspect of getting to know new people and creating a good customer experience – which is something I always used to focus on in my jobs that revolved around developing deep empathy to solve customer’s problems through technology.

I’m realizing that theoretically, I would love to live a simple life in a place like this where rent is $300 a month, a full restaurant meal can be as cheap as $5, and everyone has the same simple pastime involving the ocean… but in reality, I would much rather pay the price of living in a major metro area to have access to all the variety and excitement that comes with living in an epicenter of culture, surrounded by millions of other people with diverse ideas and interests.

Even though I could easily just say this has all been a mistake since I’m really not enjoying my time here – I’m actually still grateful for this experience as a lesson and powerful future reference point for myself.

I’ve said from day one of this sabbatical that I see this as a career break, not a career pivot – I’m not trying to run away from the life I had before. I actually was really happy with the life I left behind, outside of working at a company that wasn’t the right fit. During this “adult gap year” of travel, I’m just giving myself the breathing room to explore and allow new places and experiences to change the way I see the world and myself.

If I had never taken the leap to try to live on an island and turn my passion into a profession, I would still always be wondering what it’s like. And that “what if…” feeling would’ve haunted me until I finally did something to quell the curiosity.

So, at least now I know – and knowing what you don’t want is a valuable guiding force that helps narrow down what you really do want.

and don’t worry, it’s not ALL bad here

The one thing that has been my saving grace during the past month of this exhausting, yet enlightening training program has been the people.

I was lucky enough to get put into a cohort of fellow female divemasters who are also here for a month or two, and we have quickly become close friends sharing both struggles and laughs on a daily basis. Without these girls, I truly might have considered just cutting my losses and flying home early.

And, the one major perk of living on a small island is the strong sense of community. I’ve grown to appreciate the joy of waving to someone I know every time I walk down the street. It’s endearing when local business owners give you things for free and personalize events for you because they actually recognize you and know you as a person, not just a customer.

A majority of my dissatisfaction in the past month has stemmed from the divemaster program itself, which was overly rigorous with a jam-packed schedule that left me feeling largely depleted and not in control of my time during the month of June.

Moving forward into my second month here, the bulk of my divemaster certification is behind me minus a few small tasks, so I have nearly unlimited free time to just enjoy reading, writing, socializing, and diving only when I want to, not when I have to.

Plus, I’m turning 26 in July! Birthdays are always big reflection points for me, and I’m excited to share more insights in writing to provide clarity or perspective to anyone else who might be wrestling with a similar quarter life crisis.

So, hopefully my next update will include a more fair evaluation of the fun parts of living on an island and slowing down the pace of life, minus the shock of realizing my dream job is actually not quite so dreamy.

Either way – I’m currently living proof that getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new brings a powerful shift in perspective.

Who would’ve thought that my “dream life” would actually just result in me missing and appreciating the life I already had?

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