Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
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Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
Have you heard E2 of the Alchemy Podcast? Carlos Diezel had a great life in Brazil. He was married, had two children, worked as an engineer for a big multinational company, and got paid well. At some point in his life, he decided to leave all of that behind, in order to pursue his dream and become a professional freediver, taking his family with him to Dahab. His father did not approve of his son's decision. This is what happened.
"For me, the hardest thing by far was having to confront my father. Because he was radically against the idea of changing careers. Coming from a very stable ideal working environment from his perspective, as his generation had this dream of working in a multinational in Brazil, he felt that I was giving up the dream in order to live another thing, that in his head was not sustainable, and he considered it to be a stupid idea.
In the beginning, he didn't accept it at all. And then, we were not in touch for at least half a year, if not a whole year. After I made up my mind and started planning my new life, he would just talk about this in a bad way, because he really thought I was going mad. He kind of thought "okay, you're not responsible. You are taking away from your kids the opportunity to grow up in a wealthy environment. You’re giving up this stability that they can have to go to the best schools and probably later go to the best universities, this chance that you had, you're not giving it to them. Brazil is patriarchal. There's still that expectation that you have to be a man and you have to be a man all the time. It’s expected of you.
Three years have passed since those days and now our relationship is much better. I know that he still doesn't really like the idea that we moved here, but I think now it's more because of the distance, and because of the fact that we cannot see each other so often. I think now he sees that there are other benefits".