I would like to first thank the Fyrebyrde Toastmasters club in today’s meeting for allowing me to perform an impromptu speech about this subject matter. It allowed me to organize my thoughts finally about everyone having their own expiration date at a location, leading to my discussion about the pros and cons of the nomadic lifestyle. It is a historical debate between values of different generations.
This desire started when I was a teenager in high school as I did not fit into a lot of groups or the city in general. It strengthened as I ground through college when going through its co-op education program, in the sense of constantly keeping my options open and my enthusiasm upbeat. It heightened as I’m about to finish my college degree, when I came across a group of fellow Gen Y like me who are living anywhere they want while being able to finance themselves independently. As I have hinted about my desire to some fellow Toastmaster members during breaks on a Saturday morning meeting (and other people who are either in different generations or firmly believe in values of elder generations), most of them are quickly skeptical about it. They think this lifestyle is unrealistic to achieve and maintain. Some of them even quickly mention some opportunities that may keep me in town up to 2018 (which is relatively long time for me as I would be entering my 30s at that time).
However, I quickly shot down accepting to work myself towards those career directions, based on the following merits of my decision to follow this lifestyle as long as I want to do so. I was also recommended by them to leave out my opinions on this issue to prevent me from being closed to certain career opportunities b/c of recruiters realizing that the organization may not be able to keep me for very long; however, taking a firm stand on my beliefs and expressing them is essential to my long-term credibility and success, therefore I’m discussing this topic starting with this post. It is a mix of reactive and proactive decision making over the past few years especially.
- Likelihood of a Stable Job: Having a stable job with my degree and skills today is out of my reach at the moment. Thinking about it long-term, I don’t think they exist without significant compromises on my part. I would not want to be settling somewhere in an Engineer-in-Training (EIT) and eventually progressing into a Professional Engineer (P.E. or P.Eng), waiting to get laid off in my 40s. Promotions exist in another form these days, i.e. moving around places. If the likelihood is otherwise, it may have contributed to this decision otherwise, but I’m extremely grateful about how the turn of events turned out for me to make this decision.
- Willingness to Commit: From my conversation with the owner at the barber shop a few weeks ago, reading some blog entries from Penelope Trunk (navigating through a quarterlife crisis and frugality being a career tool), and talking to various location independence advocates on Brazen Careerist, I have confirmed that these reasons apply to me personally:
- location: I feel I am the type of person where I would have to be fairly far from home and relocating fairly often in order to feel successful, as in being a road warrior, professional nomad, serial traveller, or whatever term you would like to call it. I am possibly navigating through the quarterlife crisis at least matching the first step indicated here, but I do hope that I do not end up like everyone else. At least I’m doing whatever I can to ensure that does not happen (the later two steps).
- This goes the same as settling anywhere and buying a house for that purpose. Exact same reason as mentioned here that overcommitting myself in this regard would lead me to less opportunities, as I cannot downsize myself easily when selling a house or paying down a mortgage if I were to search for career opportunities in other geographical areas. However, buying a house as a self-sustainable investment (if done properly), such as renting to college students in a college town or region, that would be another story.
- others: Long-term relationship is an example. My conversation with the barber confirmed that I don’t want to sink my resources (time, money, energy, etc.) into new personal long-term relationships. This goes hand-in-hand with taking control of my personal freedom. The sky is the limit when I’m free from those burdens. Once I fall into this trap, I would be dead meat financially, opportunity-wise, socially, mentally, physically, etc. trying to make ends meet for those burdens. This is not to say that I’m a player though.
- location: I feel I am the type of person where I would have to be fairly far from home and relocating fairly often in order to feel successful, as in being a road warrior, professional nomad, serial traveller, or whatever term you would like to call it. I am possibly navigating through the quarterlife crisis at least matching the first step indicated here, but I do hope that I do not end up like everyone else. At least I’m doing whatever I can to ensure that does not happen (the later two steps).
- Personal Popularity: Since I am not a compromiser and I know this lifestyle would be more suitable for me b/c of the first reason, why not execute this lifestyle and proud state I have lived in cool place A1 for x1 period of time, cool place A2 for x2 period of time, …, cool place An for xn period of time? People who respect my lifestyle would be amazed about my accomplishments in terms of working and travelling at the same time. Other people may view me as having a problem not being able to settle down. For example, a journeyman in professional sports refers to a player who is able to play at a starting level, but not as well as top players in a league. As such, they generally move frequently from place to place. While I would not refer myself to them other than the regularly moving-around part, I actually see myself being more likely to be in the spotlight in terms of excitement and exposed achievement opportunities. At the same time, it would help me develop more composure and mental toughness and grit dealing with the critics of this lifestyle.
- Escaping the False Sense of Security: People often accept the option being situated in which they feel safe and secure. I can’t blame them; I was one myself, although abandoned this option as it’s actually the option that’s not realizable (and even damaging to me if I did try to force myself to it). I want to be in control in where I live and how long I live in it before I move on. Being in a “stable” and “secure” job could well mean being stuck with mediocre environment and co-workers. Do you want to be trapped in this kind of environment with no end in sight b/c of the “stability” and therefore inherited responsibility due to settling down? I think not. Being a professional nomad means I can often quit early enough and as often as I like or even see necessary (Seth Godin, who is a famous business blogger that I came to respect as I was entering into the blogging world, wrote a book about the art of quitting in The Dip. I’d highly recommend it as it’s on my reading list to go through while balancing my hellishly busy schedule). Nomadic lifestyle is the new security.
Nothing is going to turn out all flowers and roses. My goal of being a professional nomad while working myself to be financially well-off sounds very unrealistic. However, it’s often the people following through with big, and often deemed as unrealistic, dreams who ended up being viewed successful in the eyes of society. Everett Bogue illustrated a great example of realizing unrealistic goals. While desiring to be a professional nomad, I do not wish to use a service called CouchSurfing too often (recommended by a former co-worker in the same research lab), as doing so signifies constant financial problems (hence defeating the whole purpose of being a nomad to enjoy its benefits fully). Stay tuned for my views on some common skepticisms, bias, and criticisms of this lifestyle.
What do you think of this lifestyle? Do you think this is a promising one for you, for example, as a Gen Y? Please feel free to drop me a line below or at blog@sysil.com.
The follow-up post of this topic is available here!
