How Living and working abroad changed my Life back at Home.

It’s 9am, you are sitting at the desk in the office sorting through emails when all of the sudden you remember how just a few weeks ago you were probably waking up without an alarm clock in your rented villa in Ubud, Bali or your AirBnB rental in Buenos Aires two years ago. As digital nomads we are used to traveling all the time, enjoying the different cultures and cuisines around the world while still working from our tiny laptops. Still many of us come back to what we call “home” for extended periods of time for different reasons. Ones might need to get a job until the side business starts being more profitable, others like to get back to a routine for a while, and we all want to spend time with friends and family every so often.

Once you are back in the routine you start to remember how much you disliked it on the first place. This reminds me of how us humans are never 100% satisfied with our current situations. We are always fantasizing about something else even if we are living the most spectacular life ever. When I meet with other digital nomads around the world who have been out in the road for a year or longer they are always saying how they would like to come home for a while and get back into a routine, I though that’s what I wanted as well. But once you are back in it, you start wishing you could be hopping in yet one more plane to another unknown destination.

Once I stop and analyze what goes through our brains one thought comes in mind. The idea of being constantly happy with whatever current situation we have going on and the importance of knowing how to fully enjoy each moment. Being completely immersed in your every day life and being appreciative of it is not easy, but we should strive to live day by day. If I have to go to the office today and the next couple of months, I will make sure I’ll enjoy it as much as I can. On the flip side everything has it’s perks – I don’t have to worry about how I will get there, I know the coffee is always ready to be served and the good places to eat around the office where I don’t have to guess what the good plates are in the menu in some strange language. On the same note, I know that whenever I’m away I will enjoy the freedom of being able to work remotely, of knowing that there is no boss waiting for any projects or hours to be completed.

When it comes down to it, being able to work abroad at your own terms helps you appreciate work in many different ways. No matter if you decide to travel indefinitely or just for a few weeks to come back home to find a new job, the skills and mindset that you get from living in different cultures will be one of the most rewarding things you can ever do for yourself and your career.