After Eighteen Months in Europe

At 51, I'm no longer writing from where I used to stand

When my wife and I were planning our move to Spain, I became impatient.

The waiting was the hardest part.

When I become impatient, I set targets. I do it all of the time with work. If an editor isn’t buying what I’m selling, I quickly create a list of other outlets that might be interested in my point of view.

So I set a goal: I wanted to turn 50 in Spain.

We joke about that sometimes now because—I’ll admit it—my impatience is often a mix of anxiety and fear of missing out. And it often comes because the time leading up to something I want badly—an article commission, a big move—moves too slowly for my liking.

Sometimes that way of being serves me well.

That said, as I turn 51 today—in Spain—it feels less like an achievement and more like life.

Somewhere between 50 and 51, a few things happened that I wasn’t quite expecting.

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One recent free-to-paid subscriber wrote this after reading these essays:

“I feel it’s the same in transitioning to any big life change, and applies so much to what we experienced in selling everything and moving onto a sailboat.”

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I still set work targets, goals, and challenges, but even they happen as part of the process. These days, I’m less worried about getting to a specific point in time and more concerned with trying to enjoy the process. If anything, I’ve transferred the I need to do this by then long-term anxiety into wanting to ensure I make the most of each day.

More importantly, I've started to notice that I look at many of the same things I've always cared about through an entirely different lens.

For example, on Thursday I took a walk with my wife, rode my bike to the beach, did a Bikram yoga class, worked for a few hours, watched the Tour de France, went to the market, and ate well throughout the day, which takes a little effort.

On paper, it sounds like a hectic day.

Two years ago, it might have been a frantic process that involved cars and unpleasant walks. Today, it happens with a fluidity I’ve never experienced in my life.

That gets at something else that changed almost without me realizing it.

I'm now far removed from the version of everyday life I spent nearly fifty years living in the United States—a life where driving, traffic, and timing often dictated what was realistically possible on any given day. Where it regularly degraded my intention and desire to do things in life—and get the most out of my days.

This shift has redefined the way I write.

Like most Americans, I spent nearly fifty years assuming the American way was the default against which everything else gets measured. Living in Europe hasn't completely eliminated that instinct, but it has forced me to question it every day. I don’t think you can be born and bred in the United States and not operate—at least some of the time—from this bias.

Whether I’m writing about finance, cities, transportation, food, or simply a day in Valencia or somewhere else in Europe, I now find myself asking a different question:

How do different places solve the same problem?

For example, I don’t agree with every innovation or aggressive move European banks and fintechs make. But I’ve come to appreciate that, in many ways, they’re solving problems American companies often haven’t even decided to tackle. I had about zero clue that this was the case until we settled firmly in Spain.

From the perspective of someone who just loves cities, I’ve come to realize that no classroom or vacation can illustrate the extent to which American city urban planning has failed on its own and relative to much of Europe. When you live it in your daily life and smart city planning principles become your baseline rather than your dream—what you long for and sometimes fight for—the perspective shift gets driven home.

The bottom line is simple.

I’m no longer writing from inside the United States.

I’m writing from Europe—not as a tourist, and no longer as someone adjusting to life here, but as someone whose everyday assumptions have changed.

That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about the United States. If anything, I probably think about it more. I just think about it differently.

Fifty-one hasn’t given me all of the answers, but—more so—enough distance to recognize that my perspective has changed.

I can’t think of a better time to have such a seismic shift in perspective. It’s as scary as it is intriguing—not to mention life-changing and boringly utilitarian in my everyday life and work.

I haven’t come to conclusions over this last 18 months as much as I’ve let them come to me.

If you’ve been reading these essays for a while, maybe you’ve noticed the shift too.

They started as stories about moving abroad. But they’re becoming stories about perspective. And that’s where this newsletter has arrived.

If you’re European and curious how someone raised in the United States slowly came to see this continent differently, I hope you’ll stick around.

If you’re American who’s convinced we can build better cities, better systems, and ultimately better everyday lives, I hope you’ll stick around too.

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The daily tour de turista de Valencia preparing to depart Russafa