Never Retire: Amsterdam Was Lovely. It Was Also Boring.

As I turn 50 in July, I want to be somewhere that's vibrant—and a little messy. Spain delivers. Clean and tidy doesn't.

It can come off as a tad pretentious when people say that travel helps you discover who you are. However, as you collect examples of that very process taking place, you quickly realize that it can be a true statement.

You don't find out who you are by getting a clear picture of yourself standing in front of the Mona Lisa for your Instagram story. You don't find out who you are by waiting in line to scarf down the same food everybody else is eating only because they saw it on TikTok.

You find out by imagining two things about what your day to day would be like in a place—

• What it would look like in concrete terms

• What and how that day to day would make you feel based on a sober assessment of your fast-developing experience as a tourist.

This matters to personal development, but takes on additional importance if you're planning a move abroad. Liking tasting a wide variety of foods, it helps you separate the places you like from the ones you could take or leave. It helps you understand the physical and social environments and cultures that best suit your personality and basic needs. It helps you see exactly what it is about a place that inspires you—or not.

The point I can't make enough about making this move to Spain—and making big life decisions in general, particularly at and after middle age—is that you're likely to fail if you don't have a solid sense of who you are, what you want, why you want it, and how you'll react physically, mentally, and emotionally when you get it.

A key element of all that is how close your assessment of what you want and expect ends up being to the subsequent reality. If you romanticized life in your new situation—or otherwise fooled yourself—the life you will be reacting to could be so unfamiliar that it creates a big mess. It's easier to clean these messes up and move on when you're 30 than it is when you're 50.

I turn 50 next month, so it was important to get this move right. To nail the assessment of what life would be like in Spain. My wife and I did it. In fact, we nailed it. A proud and rewarding reality that Amsterdam helped reconfirm over the weekend.

I’ve now been to enough places to understand the difference between admiring a city and actually wanting to live in it. Over the years, I have developed a solid sense of how I feel about a place—could I live in it?—within a few days.

Amsterdam is beautiful. It’s clean. It’s one of the better compact, walkable environments I’ve ever seen.

That said—

Even with the bike culture there even more dominant than I expected, it doesn't inspire me.

It—and the city as a whole—doesn’t excite me.

I never once felt the type of spark I get every time I step out my front door in Valencia.

There’s no edge. No grit. No friction. Any vibrancy looks and feels a tad too clean and homogeneous. Without those things, I don't feel inspired to do much more than look around and appreciate how tidy everything is.

Visiting other places—especially if you consider them from the would I want to live there perspective—can tell you if you’re someone who needs calm or chaos, quiet or the constant chatter and unpredictability that’s undeniably alive.

That’s one reason why this trip mattered.

As I turn 50 and settle even more deeply into this life abroad, I want to be where I feel that pulse. I want to be where I feel like myself. That place, without question, is Spain.

I wonder and want to know how other people address this dynamic. Whether it's to determine how you'll use your time if you decide to Never Retire into and beyond middle age or to figure out where you're going to live the rest of your years.

I saw a good friend of mine while in San Francisco. His brother picked up and moved to Portugal several years ago. While we are dinner in SF, his nearly 80 year old parents where on pitstop in Valencia on their way to another city in Spain. Not to visit, but to live.

This world is as incredible and inspiring a place as it sad and scary. The best way I've found to survive and have a fighting chance to thrive is to see as much of it as you can and let your experiences help dictate exciting new phases of your life, no matter your age.

You don’t need to chase some abstract dream. You need to know what kind of life and what type of place keeps you sharp, loose, curious, and alive. Then plant your feet and hang your hat there.

That’s what we did. And this trip only made it clearer: Spain is where I want to spend the second act of my life actually living.

Not drifting. Not aging out. Living.

That’s the Never Retire mindset.

Some Spanish practice—

This matters to personal development, but takes on more importance if you're planning a move abroad.

Esto es significa a crecimiento de personal, pero tiene más importante si estás planeando una mudanza extraña.