Many long-term travelers go crazy after 5 years of constant movement.
The ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle grants you a lot of freedom, but shallow friendships, repetitive conversations, constant change, lack of stability, and feeling like you’re on non-stop vacation for half a decade can make you miss the simpler life.
You can become jaded and hard-to-impress, after all… this waterfall isn’t as big as the one you saw in South America. Did you have fun on the guided quad-bike tour?! Tourist…
As you get older, the lifestyle of a gap-year high school student becomes less appealing. Some nomads literally go crazy. They break down in tears. They want to vomit as they approach yet another airport terminal.
Why Are Digital Nomads Breaking Down In Tears?
I believe that many nomads made the mistake of claiming something ‘exciting’ as their highest purpose. Without full-life perspective, they failed to see that becoming ‘location independent’ isn’t an end goal, but only a sub-goal.
Like a man or woman who desperately wants to become wealthy, we worked to make a dream a reality failing to realize that once you have $1,000,000 in the bank, you then need to know what you are going to do with it.
Like a new convert to Christianity or Islam, we perhaps became overexcited, placing our identities behind something we didn’t fully understand, experiencing momentary catharsis and pledging the rest of our lives to a book. (this one written by Tim Ferris)
Becoming a Christian is not as important as the good works you will do as a Christian. Amassing $1,000,000 isn’t as important as what you will do once you have financial freedom. The Declaration of Independence was signed to commemorate the inception of the United States of America, setting the stage but not building the nation.
Becoming a digital nomad is not an end goal. On it’s own, it is freedom without a purpose. Independence without a cause. It is an empty platform.
Being A Digital Nomad Is Just One More Expression Of You: The Free, Curious, And Courageous Person
Your life is about more than being a ‘digital nomad’, just like your life is about more than being ‘a businessperson’, ‘an American’, ‘a Christian’ or ‘a college student’.
Being a digital nomad is a piece of you, but it is not all of you. Forget this and you might have an emotional breakdown when your core identity begins to lose it’s appeal.
What Are The Other Pieces Of Your Life?
Who are you, beyond being a digital nomad? What pieces of you remain once we remove the ‘nomad’ parts?
Freedom is probably important to you. Curiosity and exploration may have led you to become a nomad. Do you enjoy facing challenges, courageously taking on adventures and feeling the blood pump through your veins? These things at your core are more important than the external definition of ‘digital nomad’.
I am driven by freedom, overcoming fear, the pursuit of worldly knowledge, and recognized achievement. What drives you?
Living this lifestyle, you have a clean slate on which to write your life, an untouched tabula rasa waiting for your hand. No debts, no responsibilities, no enemies, no reputation, no children, no criminal record, no emotional baggage, no promises, no home.
‘Nothing’ is a beautifully free place to begin, but it is not a fulfilling life plan. How can you grow beyond your current self-definition?
What in you led to your desire to become a digital nomad? Can you explore it through other avenues of expression?
Beyond being a digital nomad, what do you care about? What will you care about in 20 years, in 50?
If you had to stop traveling, how would you define yourself?
If you no longer had your travel blog, what would you write about?
What will remain with you after your years traveling abroad?
If you aren’t a ‘digital nomad’, who are you?
Can more nomads think about questions like these, with a full-life perspective rather than the shortsighted gap-year mentality?
If they did, I believe we would see less mental breakdowns at the end of the journey, and in their place more highly-appreciated ‘digital nomad experiences’ marking the free-spirited beginning of the larger, all-encompassing life journey.
2 Responses
Vagabond Elmer · April 27, 2018 at 20:52:10 · →
You make some very good point! Digital Nomadism is a lifestyle choice is not a profession or a goal to be achieved. Like any other lifestyles, there is no such a thing as success or failure, there is just a change of lifestyle. I create my own to deviate a bit from the commonality of being a nomad, it calls Vagabond Lifestyle, and its just that a lifestyle design to live a simple, economically sustainable and nomadic life.
Nico Jannasch · May 22, 2018 at 12:25:01 · →
Hola Elmer! Vives todavia en Puerto Rico?
I like your website! Yes, I agree that the slow travel with integration in the places you go (rather than staying in a walled resort for a week) is the best way to learn about the world.
You make some very good point! Digital Nomadism is a lifestyle choice is not a profession or a goal to be achieved. Like any other lifestyles, there is no such a thing as success or failure, there is just a change of lifestyle. I create my own to deviate a bit from the commonality of being a nomad, it calls Vagabond Lifestyle, and its just that a lifestyle design to live a simple, economically sustainable and nomadic life.
Hola Elmer! Vives todavia en Puerto Rico?
I like your website! Yes, I agree that the slow travel with integration in the places you go (rather than staying in a walled resort for a week) is the best way to learn about the world.