‘In Romania, they value quality of life over material assets. In Israel, there’s pressure to succeed’

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Miri Avihoo, 40, lives in Matan, and Ehud Beck, 48, lives in Tel Aviv; arriving from Bucharest

Hi, Ehud and Miri. What’s the connection between you?

Miri: We’re good friends.

Ehud: We were with two other [female] friends, who already left the airport.

How was it in Romania?

Miri: Life there is a lot calmer than ours, or at least that’s how it appears to a tourist. Lunch lasts three hours. With us it’s, “Hey, gimme a sandwich and I’ll take off, because I’ve got to get back to work.”

Ehud: You order food, and even in good places the waiter says, “No problem, you can stay another half hour…”

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Miri: In the meantime, you drink something, you chat. Which is really nice. It’s a different kind of life.

Why do you think it’s like that?

Ehud: They’re happy with a little.

Miri: Life is a lot simpler, and there doesn’t seem to be this need to run after the next big thing or wealth. They look at quality of life more than at material assets. They don’t do their grocery shopping at the supermarket. They’ll say “give me a couple of tomatoes” and make due with that. And they have great booze; they make it by themselves.

Ehud: We bought a few bottles.

Miri: Sure. Because here we’re in a pressure cooker. You have to succeed, to produce, to accomplish. They don’t worry about “to accomplish.” Especially at our ages, you look back at what you’ve done and where you are, and whether you really needed to do all that. Maybe you didn’t enjoy your family and the experiences along the way?

Why is it especially relevant at your ages?

Miri: Because you’re not in the rat race anymore. There’s a house, a mortgage, the kids are grown up, the career is in a stable place. You know what you’re going to do and what it’s going to look like, so now it’s a matter of how you take it forward, how you enjoy things.

Ehud: I began that process at age 30.

Why 30?

Ehud: I’d done my army service, then I was a developer, then a project manager, after that vice president for development. I worked on projects here and abroad. I was always going for the next job, and after a few years it all blew up. I suddenly looked back and saw that it hadn’t been worth it. Other than financially, I had little that really fulfilled me. You compare yourself to people around you – the cars, the watches, the pens. And in the end you discover that you spent a great deal of money, which means many months of work, and you don’t do anything with it. That’s the change I made; I got it. You can get by with fewer things, or buy only what you need.

Miri: It’s mostly a matter of not being interested anymore in what people think of me or what interests others. Life is beautiful.

That’s what you told yourself at the age of 30?

Miri: Listen, things look easy with the wisdom of hindsight. I’m sure that when I’m 50 I’ll see things even more differently – anyway, I hope so. But if I were to give you a piece of advice, it would be “Stay calm and all will be good.” There’s a way to accomplish everything, and it can be overwhelming and involve lots of stress – or it can be cool.

Ehud: We have a path laid out for us: army-marriage-apartment-kids. It’s rigid, and if you stray, you get weird looks. It’s okay for some, but not everyone wants to follow it so much today. That’s why you see marriages taking place later, or people seeking self-fulfillment, so there’s more divorce. Think of our parents. Their life is children, grandchildren, meals. That’s what they like, and it’s amazing, but I don’t think they’ve experienced self-realization. That’s why they look so burned out at their age.

Someone who follows his passions won’t feel that way?

Ehud: I have no idea. I think maybe he’d be more at peace with himself if he had done the things he wanted to do, or at least tried.

Miri: You also have to understand the price you’ll have to pay. You have to say, “I’m prepared to have my promotion to take a little more time, and that’s fine.” To build your life by constantly adjusting your expectations. But those insights about life didn’t come only from this trip, it’s just that we were really able to delve into it.

Ehud: When three girls take a trip and drink alcohol – they talk a lot.

Miri: But you had fun.

Ehud: Sure.

What’s it like to travel with girls? Did you talk more about your feelings?

Ehud: That wouldn’t happen. How many times did I talk about my feelings during the trip?

Miri: Never.

Yarden ShaiTomer Appelbaum

Yarden Shai, 26, lives in Mitzpeh Ramon; flying to Croatia

Hi, Yarden, what are you going to do in Croatia?

I’m going on a cycling trip called Ecotopia: It’s a group that’s not organized and travels through Europe for three months by bike. You bike every few days and the rest of the time do volunteer work in ecological projects. The route is from Austria to Slovenia and then on to Croatia – I’m joining for the last two weeks there. It seems to me that two weeks is enough time to ride a bicycle with no experience.

You don’t know how to ride a bike?

When I was in Tel Aviv, I rode bikes a lot.

When did you live in Tel Aviv?

Before moving to Mitzpeh Ramon, I lived there for half a year. Before that I was at Neot Semadar [alternative kibbutz in the Arava] for two months, before that I hiked the Israel Trail, before that I traveled abroad, before that Mitzpeh again, and before that overseas again – and I think that’s it. Before all that I was discharged [from the army].

Wow, that’s a lot.

Yes. When I was 8, my mother and I went to visit my siblings in India and we were there for a month. I think that already back then I thought, “Okay, this is what it looks like I’m gonna do when I’m their age.”

What’s it like in Neot Semadar? It’s almost a cult, isn’t it?

It’s a really cool place. It was hard for me the first month with all the rules, like no talking in the dining room, but mostly because you get up at 6:30, work and don’t get money for it. That was really strange for me. I worked in the dining room, in the place where they pack juices and jams [for sale], in the ecological guest house and in the date grove. After a month I said, “Okay, I’ll just try to enjoy everything and see what happens, without fear” – and it was amazing. I learned a lot of things about myself there. It’s a great place. I was supposed to start a course in construction, an eight-month commitment, so I dropped it. I moved to Tel Aviv, which is the opposite of Neot Smadar and also the opposite of commitment.

What was it like there?

Cool, though to pay the rent I had to work.

Like in Neot Smadar.

Even more. I had five jobs. I waited tables, I was a dog walker, a babysitter, a cleaner and I packed houses for moving. I really liked the packing. I was in incredible homes, all kinds of Tel Aviv high-rises that I never would have seen in my life. Besides that, I went to the beach a lot, did yoga and danced. There wasn’t a spare moment, but I absolutely loved it, I felt alive. But I also felt that I couldn’t relax and breathe.

You also mentioned being abroad.

After the army, I was sure I was going to spend my entire life traveling. I felt that that was the ultimate freedom, and I did it for a few years. But then it wasn’t like freedom anymore, it was like a burden. Suddenly I wanted to be in the culture I was familiar with, where I feel at home. I felt there was something to be said for being in one place and knowing the same people, that it’s calmer. That I don’t have to keep reinventing myself.

How did this change come about?

I kept meeting new people, and each time I felt it was an effort to bridge cultural gaps. It wasn’t like being with my close friends, with whom I feel comfortable, or people in Israel who in three sentences can understand more or less what I’ve done in life. The thrill wasn’t worth it for me any longer. When I arrive in a new place I need to get into it, and that takes a lot of energy. In Israel there’s something a lot calmer, in that I already know what to expect.

Do you manage to stay in touch with your friends in Israel?

Yes. All my friends have got university degrees.

What’s that like for you?

At first, when they’d just started their studies, it was clear to me that it wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was also scary that everyone else was doing it. These are friends I grew up, from preschool, and they’re all doing something else, so it was like: “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.” But I think it also helped me gain confidence: I really ask myself and listen to what it is that I want. It’s been rewarding, because I see that I am doing myself some good.

Has a distance been created between you and your friends?

I believe it has. They’re mostly interested in the things they experience in life, which is school and work, and I experience different things. It’s like suddenly all the friends have kids and you don’t, and suddenly they’re talking about disposable diapers. But at the same time there’s a strong feeling of belonging.