In the selo, there is an old saying:
Po jutru se dan poznaje.
This just means that the way you treat your morning will reflect heavily on the way the rest of your day will turn out. Now of course this seems like common folk wisdom, but for Croatians—especially Dalmatians—who love food and rest above all, few proverbs are more relevant to everyday selo living.
I’m sorry. But you just no welcome.
Who you think you are? Big shot Amerikanci. Come to my Selo, take my land, take my voće, my povrće and sell oversea? Give me money and box of beer then fuck off? I no need of your gifts. I no need of your money. How dare you show off?
5 days, 35 tweets and 3 live streams ago… Man does time fly and By God is this Man prolific. Last Friday, Hunter Drew streamed about “forging your own path” and gave a phenomenal shout out to my friend Kyle Trouble. He had nothing but good things to say.
So I thought I’d spend some time here today talking about how I met Kyle while living abroad in Eastern Europe, about what I was doing out there, and how the two of us got to where we are today in terms of our new venture.
My name is Martin. I’m a 27 year old Croatian-Canadian currently residing on the West Coast of Canada. I’ve been here since last November. Prior to that, I had been living in Eastern Europe for two years, but I was born and raised in North America. I am a dual citizen. As I’m about to explain, my connection with the Old Country runs blood deep.
Bog obitelj (Greetings family)!
Way back in December, I filled a suitcase full of extra virgin Croatian olive oil from my family farm in the Dalmatia region of Croatia. I had just quit my job and decided to visit my selo during the annual harvest in November, the month prior.
I took as much olive oil as I could, about 15-20 liters (4-5 full tree’s worth if you can believe it). In exchange for the olive oil, I decided to leave about half of my wardrobe in the village. It turned out to be a worthwhile transaction.
Family values are the one thing that remain constant in life. However, in modern times the average person feels as though they should leave home by the time they’re 18. Living at home is often looked down upon by Westerners, especially by thots, career bros, and Boomer dads who tend to look down on you if you aren’t slaving away for a mortgage on a condo by the time you’re 25.
It has been almost 10 months since I quit my job working as a software engineer at an internationally renowned pharma tech company. I was making good money and living in an exciting Central European city. I would eat out almost everyday. Turkish Martin from Arselan Kebab (he looks like me) give me free kebab from time to time. I would go out on dates many times per week. But this was mainly because of my premium Badoo subscription. Like pervert I sniffed their private API and issued to myself free tokens.
A son calls his mother from his studio apartment in San Francisco. She lives in the selo, back in the Old Country.
Frank: Mama, iman ti nešto reć! (Mom, I’ve got something to tell you!)
Recently, a reader at The Rational Male, had this to say, in response to one of my comments in which I argued that it might be better for some men to push back ideologically compared to “sucking it up” and simply compete within the environment in which they have voluntarily placed themselves:
This is an article I originally published on Medium. I thought it would be relevant to post it again here because I’ve recently been writing about related topics. Selonomics, at its core, is an attempt to understand the ethics of work, by asking “How much should I work? Can I get more by doing less? When is it really worth it to do more?”
Are you trying to decide whether living abroad is worth it? I recently quit my job after two years overseas, where I was working as a software developer at a highly-regarded multinational corporation. Actually, I was working in their “cost center” in Eastern Europe. A cost center is the outsource arm of a company whose headquarters is located in another country.
Overall, it was a lot of fun for my first year. I met new friends, drank some of the cheapest and best tasting beers I’ve ever had, and got to see a new part of the world. However, for those who are interested in a more long-term solution, I came to find that when all is said and done it is very difficult to come out ahead, at least compared to home, by living abroad on solely a monthly salary.
