I like to travel. False, I like to discover new cultures, visit cities I’ve never been before, eating tasty food, meeting unknown people, and the amazing feeling of walking in a street where everything is brand new. This passion has grown since I’m traveling for work, and even more since I’m going in countries where I don’t even speak their languages. I’m juggling with the idea of traveling, and freedom a lot more since a couple of weeks: I’m thinking about being a nomad.
Since we are young, the society forges our minds about the ultimate goal: have a car, buy a house, and live a happy life with your spouse or husband without forgetting all your material possessions. The end goal: working while waiting for vacations, and retire after several years of hard work. When you’ll be old, and tired, it will be the time to live your life, travel, and realize your dream! That sounds wrong to me: why should I wait until I have 65+?
I have the pleasure to have a job that I enjoy, and don’t require me to stay in Montreal or even in Canada: as long as I’m not far from an airport, and I have an Internet connection, I’m good. I also have the chance to share my life with an extraordinary woman who would be up for this new life. Now, I’m only at the idea stage, seeing if it’s really something that I want to do, if it’s something, we want to do. We also need to explore the consequences, and what we should do to make it happens. What kind of nomads do we wants to be: traveling with a bag (will be impossible for now with the cats – we have three, and they are like our kids), or living one to a couple of years per countries? What are the implications for our citizenship, my work (legal issue – paycheck), Émilie’s work? What habits should we change to make it easier? How can we deal with all our possessions, our furniture, our condo, my car, and everything else we own? What about our families, and friends? Which countries would be our new hometowns? As you can see, there are a lot of things to think about, and almost certainly a lot more, just to analyze if it’s something we can, and foremost, wants to do. It was no surprise that one of my words for this year was minimalism: it’s probably one of the most important concepts if you want to be a nomad.
I’ll write a lot about this topic on my blog: it will help me think about all the different aspects, and summarize my ideas. As I’ll share my experience, I hope it will motivate other people to take the ownership of their live. Even if I never change my lifestyle, I’m sure we’ll get a lot out of this exercise because we’ll evaluate many aspects of our lives… After all, we wouldn’t like to be free, and really live his life while he can!
