All your everyday distractions, gone.

"I was a very active kid. Football, skiing, swimming, hiking - I did everything. But when I grew older and went to university, I lost a part of that. For a while the city life was my reality, where studying and parties consumed more of my time than staying healthy and being in nature. I think many people experience that - a time where you disconnect from your real values, the things you truly appreciate about life. But eventually I realized that, and a desire to change my priorities made headway. I wanted to be outside more, reclaim a way of being closer to nature.

One summer I decided to go to Costa Rica, alone. You kind of just have to try it once you're there, as it's known as THE surfer's paradise. And to be honest, it wasn't how I expected it to be in the beginning - frustrating, and so hard to master. But as I floundered around in the water, struggling to even stay on the board, there was something about it that hit me as liberating. Just me, with my focus completely stuck to this moment, this one task. No phones, no notifications, nobody and absolutely nothing else than me trying to master something I had no control over. It wasn't like anything I had done before. When you go running, you have your phone in your pocket. You go skiing, your phone is in your pocket. You're never completely disconnected to the rest of the world. But when you're surfing, you leave the phone, you leave everything. Just you in the water for some hours trying to cooperate with the most unpredictable team mate there is - the ocean. Learning to analyse, reading wind and movement in the water. Something so simple, yet so complex.

Surfing gave me a hybrid between everything I wanted to change; wanting to stay healthy knowing I can still stand on that board when I'm fifty, getting to travel to beautiful places, meeting wonderful people, and most importantly - disconnecting in a way that's very rare nowadays. All your everyday distractions, gone."

- Andreas, Norway