The True Freedom of Location Independence
We’ve heard this story a number of times: Person wants to live a digital nomad lifestyle. Person travels the shit out of the world. Person gets tired and realizes their true happiness is at home. Last night I watched Expedition Happiness, which (spoiler alert!) has this same bittersweet ending. And that is what inspired me to write this post. AVOIDING BURN OUT.
It’s so easy to get burned out doing anything you love by taking it full throttle and never stopping. But that’s just the thing about living a location independent lifestyle: NO ONE is forcing you to go, go, go. You have the freedom to take it whatever pace suits you. If you want to trek in a van down the Pacific coast every day, fucking do it! If you want to swap locations only once a year, fucking do it!
The vast majority of digital nomads I’ve met realize there is a huge fucking world out there and want to see and experience it all. I get that, we’re a curious bunch. But not too many of us really stop to smell the roses. (Or the shit, depending on where you are!)
If I were to compare myself to the typical nomad, I feel like I would land on the more boring side of the spectrum. Why? I tend to stick to a place for 3-5 months at a time. But there is a certain strategy behind that, and a strategy that allows me to really discover or revisit the location. This strategy allows me to get to know my neighborhood, it allows me go on weekend trips that anyone else would have to take vacations for, and more importantly, it allows me to establish a routine that is the essence of physical and mental wellbeing. This is where people get burned out - they can’t establish a routine because they are constantly going and constantly feeling the need to see and do. And the little bit of stopping begins to feel like such a luxury, that all of a sudden, traveling begins to become more and more pressure. And then you’re over it.
In my model of living, I can evenly divide my time between experiencing and not. This past weekend, where I’m currently in Denver, we got a snowstorm. It was the perfect excuse to just stay in and watch shitty tv snuggled under a bunch of blankets while I had my groceries delivered. And I never once felt like I HAD to go out and do something. If I were only here for 2 weeks, I would’ve felt the need to get out, run around, experience as much as possible, and move on to the next place. It’s like that saying “I need a vacation from my vacation.” Except this is daily living for many of you nomads out there, and man that shit can run you into the ground.
In my model of living, I can remain consistent in doing things I love. I love training in martial arts, and it’s a big part of my life. I can be in one place long enough to find a gym that I connect with, and get into a happy and healthy routine of training and fitness after work every night. I can establish my favorite weekday routine at home of going for a sunrise walk and making breakfast before work. Like the non-nomadic folks out there, I can decide at the end of the day to meet friends for happy hour, or to train, or to just stay in and watch Netflix.
In my model of living, I can have friends and a social life. I can meet people in any sort of way we already do in typical or traveling life, but there is more opportunity for that connection to grow. I can become a regular at my little watering hole down the street and get to know the characters there. I can have regular training partners that I look forward to seeing at my gym. I can meet more friends from the friends that already exist in a town in which I’m staying. Even just saying hi on my morning walk to the same expected faces can make you feel at home. You become a small piece of that community fabric.
In my model of living, you are living in a dynamic place. You can see changes happening, rather than having a static idea of what a place is like and assume it’s always like that. You start to observe your surroundings with a finer eye and find the deeper beauty of said place because you’re not taking it all in for the first time.
But yet, with all of this, it never has to get boring, because you can go when you WANT to go. You can have your exciting traveling life WHILE having normal people days too! One of the reasons that I say my nomad lifestyle might fall on the boring end is because I find myself going back to a lot of the same places I’ve come to love. Spending just enough time in each of these places has allowed me to make friends that I can’t wait to see again. Spending just enough time in each of these places makes me realize there’s so much more to explore than what I was able to see the first time around. Spending just enough time in each of these places makes me realize I don’t want to settle down in one location long term, but it keeps the excitement alive whether I’m returning to an old favorite or whether I’m establishing roots the first time in a new place.
The key to this lifestyle, much like most of life, is finding your balance. Try it, you might like it!