Earlier this week I met someone who had read my first article about my digital nomad experience that was on Medium.
That was very surprising for me as I have never had any feedback. It could not come to my mind that anyone would actually follow this “blog”. I read it again and was impressed how things have changed.
I’ve now be living as a digital nomad for almost 3 years and I still love it.
I didn’t think it could be so enjoyable for such a long period. Plus, I don’t feel like I’m ready to stop. Every single journey is a new odyssey and I have the possibility to stop. I’ve just never wanted to.
I’m not saying it’s easy every day. Some day I feel loneliness, I can feel torn apart when I need to leave someone I got close to and wonder what is the purpose of all that. But I always feel the answer to that question. That’s just life at it’s best!
Traveling, it’s dying often to be reborn better. And the ultimate richness is to live multiple times.
I’m not an emotionally intense person. However I found myself discovering new high emotions recently. And I’m very certain that traveling is not just a part of it, but is the main factor. Things just happen when you listen carefully to yourself and accept opening doors. I feel like I’m discovering a little more about who I am deeper.
Very often people ask me when I will get stable. In my opinion that’s a very clumsy way of asking if I ever plan to get a more traditional lifestyle.
I just don’t feel unstable.
Walking is losing balance from one side to another. Sitting is remaining stable. But how do you step further?
When I was in Sofia for a conference, Onnik was presenting a talk about cashless payment. I was presenting about living as a Digital Nomad right after him. He seemed confused about what I said and considered that moving around like this I must have lost my roots. He said my lifestyle sounds fun, but he wouldn’t go for anything like that. However it was important to have roots to remain solid and build things around oneself. But I’ve never felt like I had any deep roots. I feel like a child of the world. Maybe a little more European, but still the world feels like home.
Then I told him how I see people like trees and birds. Trees have roots. Birds have wings. A tree sits and stands in one place, builds things for the long term, drains water out of the ground and make it available for the outside.
A bird flies out to new destination. It builds a small ephemeral home before leaving again. Birds need trees for home and food. Trees need birds for seeding away. I guess we never are totally one or another, but a personal balance of both.
I wouldn’t say everyone should apply this lifestyle. It may be too extreme for some but there’s a lot of intermediate possible levels from experimenting these Odysseys. Traveling is certainly important and one thing to consider. For some it may be for a period in life, for others it could be short but more often. But it’s still important to open to other cultures and challenge oneself in different contexts, away from an office or one’s familiar area.
This article is moving to https://neomad.org/@vinyll/3-years-as-a-digital-nomad-58f0b0bd608f4c01910a71a1
