Crete, Greece
Being a digital nomad will shock you into freedom.
Circling the globe while building an online business will rocket you outside of your comfort zone.
Do you want freedom?
Being a digital nomad may just be for you.
Do you want an easy way to travel the world?
Move along.
If you clicked on this link looking for pix of chicks in Infinitely pools you can exit stage left now.
But if you really want to understand what the digital nomad lifestyle entails just stick around for a bit.
Disclaimer; I genuinely believe that the only more freeing way to live is to become enlightened.
Facing your fear and letting go the fear of losing consistent contact with your biological family, a job, a steady paycheck, health benefits, a house and your general identity as a time-space creature living predominantly in one country fosters a sense of peace you will almost never know until you travel the world non-stop for years while working a job or business.
Why do humans ask each other:
- where are you from?
- what do you do for a living?
Humans appear to small talk these questions as conversation starters.
However, don’t buy that egoic bullshit.
On a more sinister, unconscious level, the ego wants you to completely identify with your birth town or birth country or your job, financial status or business.
Digital nomads claim to have been born somewhere else but who are they while living in foreign lands?
Digital nomads may identify with working remotely as employees or entrepreneurs but even that identity dissolves as you lose yourself in foreign cultures.
For example, when I lived in Bali for 6 months, the housekeeper Ayu did not ask me where I was from or what I did during our first meeting. Culturally, being firmly rooted in Spirit, she felt joyous and appreciative that I chose to visit her country and wanted to share customs, cultures and ceremonies of Bali with me. She did not care that I was a blogger. She did not give a rat’s rectum that some fools oddly consider me to be one of the top bloggers on earth (I do not).
We discussed her treasured chickens, cows, and ceremonies for papaya, cell phones and motorbikes, and ya know what?
It was not about me.
Digital nomadism propels you from the ego and I-itis to Love and One-ness. Really.
Being One and realizing it more often fosters freedom, peace, and a sense of fascination with our connection. The more you hit the road and peel open your mind the more happy you become.
However, hitting the road and peeling open the mind triggers conscious and unconscious fears. Fears reflect back to you as rough situations on the road.
Tough situations on the road are not too glamorous.
Even if you don’t want any of that smoke you cannot experience the freedom of traveling non-stop UNLESS you face fears triggered during intense travel experiences.
We’ll get to the tough road stuff in a bit.
First, let’s explain why the digital nomad life is as glamourous as it sounds.
Yes
Fun
Circling the globe for years predominantly feels fun.
Do you enjoy the feeling of being on vacation?
Being a digital nomad feels that fun much of the time.
How does it feel to live in places like New Zealand, Fiji and Turkey for months at a time?
Fun.
Freeing
Digital nomads free themselves from the system.
Globe trotters travel:
- when
- where
- how
they want to travel.
Freedom is glamorous. Spending the afternoon on the beach overlooking the Mediterranean Sea feels liberating. Living in the jungles of Phuket feels exhilarating.
Being able to travel anywhere at anytime for any period of time sounds like a dream to employees seemingly tethered to their jobs. For digital nomads, this is life.
Fascinating
Digital nomads uncover fascinating facts organically by simply changing international locations frequently.
Did I know that Thailand boasts a convenience store culture before becoming a globe trotter? Nope. Yet I almost tried to sample all 200 plus 7-11’s on the island of Phuket when we arrived in 2011 (12 years later I cannot imagine how that number mushroomed).
Seeing folks enjoy Turkish coffee and tea on the streets of Istanbul, observing holy men follow spiritual rituals in Kathmandu and feasting on traditional coffee and dates in Oman fascinated me.
Fun, freeing and fascinating, being a digital nomad feels glamorous most of the time.
My life sounds like a movie sometimes but only because I chose to embrace the discomfort associated with being a digital nomad.
No
Fear
Circling the globe as a business owner or employee explicitly forces you to face pulsating, deep fears that most folks never stare dead in the eye.
Facing fears, struggling and slamming into resistance does not feel glamorous at all.
Being a digital nomad requires you to face, feel and release fears related to:
- safety
- security
- special relationships
- income
- health
- culture
Circling the globe non-stop forces you to embrace your conscious and unconscious fear of rejection, criticism, poverty and, ironically, your fear of freedom.
I feared freedom from a state of abject terror because I identified so deeply with being a victim of the world I saw. I imagined myself to be a poor, little human living in New Jersey who worked jobs, received a paycheck and did as he was told BEFORE I chose to circle the globe and build my blog.
Each of those fears came into awareness when I rocketed myself outside of comfort into a life of travel.
Digital nomadism didn’t seem too sexy when I experienced the hershey squirts on a bus in Burma, slammed into bleak financial difficulties in Laos or almost forgave my mortal coil in India. Did I have a job, steady paycheck, health insurance or a biological family to fall back upon when each fear-situation arose in my mind and life?
Nope.
I faced, felt and released my fears and trusted that the intuition would guide me through the experiences in order to:
- inspire you
- empower you
- share the various freedoms of the digital nomad life
If I hustled back home when the shit hit the fan – or the farm field after I “used the open toilet” and evacuated beside a cow in Myanmar (it really happened) – you would never enjoy the fun, freeing, brilliant travel photos and experiences I shared with you over the prior 6 years since that incident. If I ran away from travels fear I’d probably be sitting in a cubicle in the USA. Not a nightmare life but I cannot share selfie shots from Fiji for you if hunched over a fax machine in the States.
Being a digital nomad did not look as glamourous as it sounds during these brief encounters solely because this life means facing most if not all of your deepest fears. Most humans fear diving in to their deepest fears. Most humans do not become digital nomads.
For small periods of time, this life challenges you by sling-shotting you outside of your comfort zone. But if you ride that sling-shot enough you WILL become comfortable in virtually any situation.
Last month in Heraklion, Crete, an old lady spoke rapid fire Greek to me in a grocery store, asking me to do something for her. I smiled and peacefully listened without a trace of self-consciousness, awkwardness or embarrassment then gracefully bent down to pick up a heavy box for her. I experienced no confusion, no fear of being criticized, no fear of her not understanding me nor me not verbally understanding her. Circling the globe for 12 years puts you into so many challenging situations that most circumstances become child’s play in a world of people who largely behave like immature children when nudged even a tiny bit outside of their comfort zones, let alone on a regular basis.
Do you get it, guys? The digital nomad discomfort and challenges train your mind to be calm, peaceful and graceful in most situations.
How many homebodies or more sedentary folks behave calmly, peacefully and gracefully most of the time? Nudge most of these folks even slightly outside of their comfort zone and it’s as if the Apocalypse has unfolded, the Four Horseman of Discomfort reigning down hell, fire and brimstone “because you need to travel abroad for work and believe it’s dangerous, unsafe and unstable everywhere outside of your home country”.
The price of freedom, peace and happiness is your willingness to journey within your mind.
All unglamorous aspects of being a digital nomad FORCE you to travel within your mind.
Does that consistent peace, freedom and happiness sound like an endless nightmare to you?
I didn’t think so.
Hugging a few fears in your mind is worth a predominant lifetime of freedom experienced while circling the globe.
Conclusion
Mostly, the digital life is as glamorous as it sounds.
Fun, freedom and fascination seem to meet you around every turn.
But in those rare, less glamorous moments prepare yourself to face fear as you wade through uncomfortable situations.
You cannot experience freedom, fun and joy without facing your fears.
