23 Years Ago Today I Got On A Plane With A One-Way Ticket To Paradise

FOR TRAVEL -- ST THOMAS CARNIVAL STORY -- St. Thomas Carnival- photo credit-U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism

“PARADISE” — ST. THOMAS — U.S. Virgin Islands.  This is the view from Flag Hill of the West Indies cruise ship dock and Havensight area, all the way to Charlotte Amalie.

I had my Macintosh computer (pre-laptop days), my mountain bike, my books (pre-Internet days), and my dream of living on a tropical island. I had declared an endless summer for myself.

Yes, 23 years ago today I got on a plane with a one-way ticket to St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. with everything I required to start a new life in paradise.

It was tough to say, “Good bye” to my family and friends to go live on a little island in the middle of the oceans where I knew no one, but it was my dream and I was going for it.

You see, for many months I had been programming my subconscious mind to believe that “I live in the tropics” and “I’m selling tons of diamonds”.  I was new to the diamond business at the time and the whole world was open to me.

When I was envisioning moving to St. Thomas, I thought to myself, “What would be the easiest way this could unfold for me?” This is how I was learning to live at the time, having an idea, believing in it, and trusting the universe to deliver things to me as I go along pursuing my dreams.

Well, moving to St. Thomas was just one more example of that because I didn’t know anyone there and I had no plans set up beyond showing up at the airport with all my things.

So, I thought to myself that the easiest way this could unfold for me would be if I just met someone cool at the airport who could guide me in the best direction and then everything just working out for me from there.

Of course, you know what happened. Exactly that! I met my good friend Paul Clark and his girlfriend for the first time at the baggage claim when I was retrieving my mountain bike. They both had mountain bikes on the plane too, and so the conversations began.

As I had pictured in my imagination, Paul and his girlfriend had a villa lined up already and someone named “Walter” to pick them up and they offered to have me come along. I was able to leave my mountain bike, computer and luggage with Paul while Walter took me to look at the place where I ended up spending my first month in St. Thomas.

Within a few hours of landing at the airport, I had a place to stay, celebrated on the waterfront with cool new friends, and was settling into the start of my new life in the tropics.  I’ll always remember listening to the orchestra of frogs croaking and other loud and unusual tropical sounds I had never heard before, as I went to sleep that first night.

By the time I had gone back and retrieved my things from Paul’s villa and checked into the place where Walter took me it was dark, so I didn’t really see the view.  It gets dark early in St. Thomas.

Upon awakening the next morning, I stepped out on to my balcony and looked out to see something that blew me away!  I was looking at almost the same view of the harbor I had been looking at in pictures on my wall and night stand when I was doing my visualizing and meditating about moving to St.Thomas. (It’s almost the same view in the above photo on this page, only a bit lower on the hill.)

I was overcome with gratitude, knowing how the universe supports our desires as precisely as we communicate them through our imagination.  I had no idea where Walter was going to take me and of all the places he could have gone, he took me right there.

I tell this story to illustrate how our lives can flow when we set an intention, relax and trust, and go with the flow of life and allow our good to come to us. This is the philosophy I live by, and love.

If you’d like to live a life of your own design, I invite you to experience the accelerated transformation that occurs when you watch one of the MindFlavors® 4 minute videos.

Ciao for now!

Carl