Why Brazil

People often ask me 'why Brazil?' And I am never really able to tell them. Sure, I had my philosophical school and I speak Portuguese but there was something more. Yesterday, when talking to a friend, they pinned it for me. I came here to test my capabilities; to see what I am capable of and what I´m not. It made so much sense.

In the UK, I led a super comfortable life alongside my caring friends and loving family. I had stability and security, but I still wanted more. Here, in Brazil, I have everything to be happy and although grateful, I still search for more. That's the thing with us humans - we are always searching for something more; from a new job to a new house, to a new phone or new car. We hope that through changing things and acquiring material goods that we can achieve that ultimate aim of everyone: to be happy.

Being here in Brazil, so far away from what I consider home, is giving me the opportunity to realise that happiness never comes from the outside and that I can really only count on myself. This is a lesson that I have always avoided to deal with and now I am learning the hard way. Not because people here are unreliable – they are quite the opposite – but because I find myself in an environment which screams at me ´Be yourself, be happy´.

And so maybe I came to Brazil searching for happiness, hoping that here everything would be magical and wonderful. And although Brazil is magical and wonderful, I am the same person I was the U.K., with the same problems and same qualities. Deep down, I always knew I came here to test my capabilities and to grow. Leaving all my comforts and safety was the necessary action for me to be left with myself and to stop searching for happiness through exterior things.

'Why Brazil?' Because it's the place, alongside my professional development, that I know will give me the opportunity to grow and evolve and to stop searching happiness and instead just be happy.