Hello Friends!
Most people would call the man in this story stupid or extreme, but I would call him brave, bold and ready to live his life the way it would make him happy.
Not many of us would dare get rid of everything that reminds us of the man/woman who has broken our hearts...It takes a man/woman who is ready to take another chance on Love and Life to do that...
We found him sitting on the end of a rickety wooden jetty, marvelling at a glorious Caribbean sunset as he cooled his feet in the turquoise waters of his own private lagoon.
‘I wondered how long it would be before someone tracked me down,’ grinned Ian Usher, tethering the flat-bottomed boat that had brought us skimming across the shallows. ‘Come ashore and I’ll show you around.’
With ill-concealed pride, this controversially self-reinvented Englishman then led us along a pebble path, through lush, green mangrove thickets and trees groaning with giant coconuts, to the elegantly simple wooden house he is building — to share with the ‘fantastic’ new woman in his life.
Life's a beach: Ian Usher is building his new home on a tropical island he bought for £30,000 after auctioning his life on eBay.
Starting over: Former rug-store manager Ian, 48, sold his house, all his possessions and even his job on eBay after his wife Laura left him for another man.
‘I wondered how long it would be before someone tracked me down,’ grinned Ian Usher, tethering the flat-bottomed boat that had brought us skimming across the shallows. ‘Come ashore and I’ll show you around.’
With ill-concealed pride, this controversially self-reinvented Englishman then led us along a pebble path, through lush, green mangrove thickets and trees groaning with giant coconuts, to the elegantly simple wooden house he is building — to share with the ‘fantastic’ new woman in his life.
Life's a beach: Ian Usher is building his new home on a tropical island he bought for £30,000 after auctioning his life on eBay.
Starting over: Former rug-store manager Ian, 48, sold his house, all his possessions and even his job on eBay after his wife Laura left him for another man.
If Usher was feeling somewhat smug as he gave me a tour of the two-acre Panamanian islet he bought for the ludicrously cheap price of £30,000, his feelings were perhaps understandable.
Four years ago, Ian Usher was the man who hated his life so much that he tried to sell it, lock, stock and barrel, on the auction website eBay.
Heartbroken after his wife, Laura, left him for another man, and unable to bear remaining in the home they had made together, the 48-year-old former rug-store manager put every last vestige of his existence up for grabs: his house, all his possessions and even his job.
Determined to bury his old life without trace, move far away from Perth, Western Australia (the city to which the couple had emigrated from Darlington six years earlier) and reinvent himself, he also persuaded his friends to be ‘traded’, so that they would become part of the successful bidder’s new social circle.
Four years ago, Ian Usher was the man who hated his life so much that he tried to sell it, lock, stock and barrel, on the auction website eBay.
Heartbroken after his wife, Laura, left him for another man, and unable to bear remaining in the home they had made together, the 48-year-old former rug-store manager put every last vestige of his existence up for grabs: his house, all his possessions and even his job.
Determined to bury his old life without trace, move far away from Perth, Western Australia (the city to which the couple had emigrated from Darlington six years earlier) and reinvent himself, he also persuaded his friends to be ‘traded’, so that they would become part of the successful bidder’s new social circle.
Meticulously planned and slickly marketed, Usher’s identity-sale made international headlines, and soon offers had soared to more than £1 million, even though the house and belongings he was selling were worth only a quarter of that.
Back to basics: With the help of locals, Ian cleared the site for his house within three months, which will run on solar power when finally completed and have internet access and satellite television.
Back to basics: With the help of locals, Ian cleared the site for his house within three months, which will run on solar power when finally completed and have internet access and satellite television.
Predictably, however, given the numerous malicious hoaxers who troll the internet, things then went wrong.
Somewhat humiliatingly, Usher was forced to sell his house through an estate agent, like the rest of us, and flog off his car, jet-ski, motorbike and other possessions through small-ads, raking in a miserly £193,000; well below his eBay reserve price.
Meanwhile, Laura expressed dismay at his decision to reveal intimate details of their courtship in the online book he had written to help publicise the auction. All in all, it seemed that he’d have been better advised to stay put in Perth, let time heal his heartache, and retain his real persona.
Such was his commitment to starting a clean slate, however, that despite his very public failure, in his eyes a total rebirth remained the only option.
‘It all became much bigger than I ever expected with all the hype about selling “myself”, but I have no regrets, and even with hindsight I still think the philosophy behind the idea was sound,’ he told me, reclining in a hammock in his Bermuda shorts.
‘Even when the sale collapsed, I was just as determined to move onto the next part of my life, and it had to be a life without even the smallest memory of Laura, who had chosen everything in our old house, right down to the tiles and colour scheme.
Now Ian has found new love with Maureen Boksa, 38, as well as his own Caribbean island.
‘Some might say it would have been better to stay and deal with my loss instead of running away, but remember, my wife had left me in 2006 — two years before the auction. I had tried dealing with it for two years, and it hadn’t got any better.’
A small, wiry man with a slightly unsettling intensity in his flinty gaze, Usher pauses and adds: ‘Anyway, life works in strange ways and if I hadn’t started the auction, I’d never have found this amazing place — or Moe.’
Moe is Maureen Boksa, a 38-year-old long-distance dog-sled competitor from Yukon Territory, in the frozen wilds of Canada, who has replaced his wife in his affections.
They do, indeed, owe their introduction to the eBay debacle, albeit indirectly.
In August 2008, after pocketing the modest proceeds of his house sale, Usher left Australia with only his passport and three rucksacks to lead the life of a devil-may-care thrill-seeker.
Like Jack Nicholson in the film The Bucket List, his only aim was to savour 100 unforgettable experiences inside 100 weeks, living on the edge as though there were no tomorrow.
He included such daring adventures as skydiving and swimming with humpback whales off Japan, but added some less self-indulgent ones to assuage his conscience, such as serving in a soup kitchen in Vancouver and raising thousands for research into bowel cancer, the disease that killed his salesman father, Foster, at 61.
(Foster was also an adventurer, he says, but he died with his retirement ambitions unfulfilled, which could explain Ian’s compulsion to make the most of every waking moment).
He also wanted to meet Sir Richard Branson, spend the night in a haunted house, ride an elephant and juggle with fire clubs — all of which he achieved.
Reading about Usher’s exploits on the internet, Moe, whose marriage had also ended unhappily, was drawn to a kindred spirit. She sent him a message suggesting that he should add riding on a husky-pulled sled in Yukon to his wish-list.
He took up her offer, lodging with her and her two children in their log-cabin, and by the end of the week the two lonely hearts were beating as one.
Since Usher still had many escapades to complete, some 15 months passed before they could meet again — but on their reunion, in April 2010, they certainly made up for lost time in the most exhilarating fashion.
A small, wiry man with a slightly unsettling intensity in his flinty gaze, Usher pauses and adds: ‘Anyway, life works in strange ways and if I hadn’t started the auction, I’d never have found this amazing place — or Moe.’
Moe is Maureen Boksa, a 38-year-old long-distance dog-sled competitor from Yukon Territory, in the frozen wilds of Canada, who has replaced his wife in his affections.
They do, indeed, owe their introduction to the eBay debacle, albeit indirectly.
In August 2008, after pocketing the modest proceeds of his house sale, Usher left Australia with only his passport and three rucksacks to lead the life of a devil-may-care thrill-seeker.
Like Jack Nicholson in the film The Bucket List, his only aim was to savour 100 unforgettable experiences inside 100 weeks, living on the edge as though there were no tomorrow.
He included such daring adventures as skydiving and swimming with humpback whales off Japan, but added some less self-indulgent ones to assuage his conscience, such as serving in a soup kitchen in Vancouver and raising thousands for research into bowel cancer, the disease that killed his salesman father, Foster, at 61.
(Foster was also an adventurer, he says, but he died with his retirement ambitions unfulfilled, which could explain Ian’s compulsion to make the most of every waking moment).
He also wanted to meet Sir Richard Branson, spend the night in a haunted house, ride an elephant and juggle with fire clubs — all of which he achieved.
Reading about Usher’s exploits on the internet, Moe, whose marriage had also ended unhappily, was drawn to a kindred spirit. She sent him a message suggesting that he should add riding on a husky-pulled sled in Yukon to his wish-list.
He took up her offer, lodging with her and her two children in their log-cabin, and by the end of the week the two lonely hearts were beating as one.
Since Usher still had many escapades to complete, some 15 months passed before they could meet again — but on their reunion, in April 2010, they certainly made up for lost time in the most exhilarating fashion.
Publicity drive: Ian featured in newspapers and media outlets around the world when he announced he would be auctioning his entire life
Intending to tick off his 84th and 85th tasks in the same day, with Moe at his side, Usher arranged a trip to Florida, where they would not only fly in a fighter jet but enter into a death-defying tailspin, plunging nose first towards Earth.
When these thrills were over, however, the pilot suggested Usher might wish to accomplish another of his ambitions: joining the mile-high club.
‘The guy had read my website and seen it on the list, and he just said: “Why don’t you two go behind the curtain for 15 minutes,”’ he smiles.
‘There was just us on board, so he kept the plane level for us. It was an extraordinary day.’ One wouldn’t doubt it, and adventure number 86 was duly chalked off. But how might his Canadian partner feel about having their love life discussed with such candid abandon?
‘She’s like me: she’s gung-ho, she believes life is for living,’ Usher shrugs. By July 2010, the 100 weeks were over, and all but a handful of his 100 goals had been achieved.
Usher then spent six months with Moe and her children in Canada (during which it became clear that their love went deeper than sharing a penchant for thrills), before returning to Darlington to see his mother, now in her 70s, and visiting friends in Scarborough.
For a while, he contemplated returning to a fairly humdrum life in the North-East, but warm beer and weekends spent watching Sky Sports were clearly never for him, so he began researching the world’s most exciting — and affordable — places to settle.
One that particularly caught his eye was Bocas del Toro, a magical archipelago off the coast of Panama where the influx of backpackers and wealthy western ‘gringos’ hasn’t spoilt the timeless ambience, and people still live in stilted wooden shacks, eating fruit from the trees and line-caught mangrove snapper.
Film star: Ian says he would like Ewan McGregor to to play him after Disney bought the rights to his story for £220,000
With a local estate agent, he toured the various small islands for sale and settled on one in Dolphin Bay — so called because dolphins frolic in great numbers there.
It was offered at a knock-down price because the market had suffered in the recession, and the owner was desperate to recoup some capital. Even after spending thousands on his Bucket List, Usher could well afford the £30,000 asking price — for, having toyed with the idea for three years, Disney had bought the film rights to his story for £220,000.
He has no idea if or when the movie will be made, but says a trifle grandly: ‘I’d like to be played by Ewan McGregor.
‘Hollywood would doubtless take my story and twist it into a jazzy American plot that bears little resemblance to reality, but at least he’s a British actor I admire, and he shares my love of motorbikes.’
Usher freely admits he’s proud that film-makers are fascinated by him, and clearly quite likes being known as ‘the man who auctioned his life’. Whatever we may make of this, though, his drive and energy are something to behold.
When he bought the island — which he has called Gilligan’s Island, at the suggestion of an American friend who loved the Sixties TV series of the same name — it was nothing but a dense mangrove jungle.
However, aided by a few local workers and a joiner named Choppy, within three months he had cleared the site sufficiently to plant crops and start building his house.
Though still rather rudimentary, with its red tin roof and open windows which let in swarms of tiny, stinging insects at dusk, when finished it will run on solar power, and have access to mod-cons such as the internet and satellite television.
As things stands, he says, he is extremely happy in his island paradise, some 20 minutes by fast boat from the nearest town, even though Moe stays there only intermittently because she needs to be near her family in Yukon.
So will he settle for Dolphin Bay rather than eBay and end his manic lifestyle at last? ‘Almost certainly not,’ he says, the little black eyes fixing me intently again.
Bucket List: After selling up his life, Ian wrote his own list of 100 unforgettable experiences in 100 days, and set off to complete them
‘I’m fine as long as there’s this project to complete, but great as it sounds to laze about in a hammock and read a book all day, I’d be bored out of my brains within a week.’ So what will he do, then, when the craving for another adrenaline fix kicks in?
For a moment Usher holds back, as if contemplating the pros and cons of what he is about to say, but then — what the hell — he goes ahead and blurts it out anyway.
‘I’m toying with the idea of selling my life online again. This time it’ll be the island, the boat and the whole millionaire lifestyle, but I’d be selling pretty much everything, like last time. The only difference is that I wouldn’t do it on eBay.
‘I’d make a website and I’d be completely frank. I’d say this is how it is — the good, the bad and the ugly. The bad would be the bugs and the small element of petty theft you get round here, but there would be far more pluses.
‘It’s 30c all year round, it’s dirt cheap to live here; I’ve got my own reef for snorkelling; the local Indians turn up selling awesome fresh fish most days; there’s a great local community of American and a few British “gringos”, who all help each other out.
‘I’ve even got a fluorescent green pet octopus I go and see by torchlight every night.’
This is quite some sales pitch, one has to admit, and Usher is probably right when he guesses that there must be plenty of wealthy types in London who would gladly fork out £250,000, or more, to own their very own Caribbean island.
Of course, it’s an island that he will have bought and developed for less than half that price, though he is reluctant to play up this facet of the story.
One wonders, though, how contented Ian Usher really can be when, even after having his fingers so badly burned in the great eBay auction fiasco, and finding new love, he continues to view his life as little more than a commodity to be traded to the highest bidder.
Especially when he gazes at you, just a touch manically, and declares with searing candour: ‘Everything is for sale at the right price.’
Culled From The Daily Mail UK.
xoxo
Simply Cheska...
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