A Day in the Life of a Digital Nomad: 3 Lessons Learned

Although it’s Saturday, an opportunity arose and I opted to work into the early afternoon.

After work, I had exciting plans in tow — I was going to go horseback riding with a friend, followed by a sunset hike with another friend.

Neither happened.

Instead, I ended up catching the sunset by myself and got poured on in the process.

Here’s what happened and 3 lessons I learned in the process.

1)?Sometimes things are beyond our control — Rather than resisting what can’t be changed, it’s easier to accept what is

My afternoon plans fell through for different reasons — I wasn’t happy about the change in plans as I had been looking forward to both activities after having spent the first half of my day working. However, I also knew that not accepting the situation meant I would cause my own suffering.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering isn’t.

Knowing this, I decided to shift my focus and thought about what I could do with my freed up time. I decided to rest up before going out to catch the sunset on my own.

2)?In this present moment, you are okay — You’re only not okay when you worry about the future or ruminate about the past

In my solo venture to catch the sunset, I witnessed something I had never seen before — clouds hanging low in the mountain valley, obscuring the majority of the cotton candy-colored sky I’m accustomed to seeing during sunsets. I was fully present as I started paying close attention to the clouds and noticed how they were gliding across the sky, ever slowly.

In that brief moment of observing the clouds’ movement across the sky, all was right in my world. I was okay. Everything was okay. Because in that brief moment, I wasn’t worried about the future or preoccupied with the past. I was fully present and fully immersed.

3)?Being with yourself is an opportunity to learn how to be your own company that you enjoy

As I was watching the sunset, it started to pour and I decided it was time to leave. As I walked by myself in the rain, it dawned on me that I had nothing to “distract” me — no one was around me, I didn’t have any music playing and there wasn’t a beautiful view to capture my attention.?It was just me and my thoughts.

In that moment, I realized how important it is for me to pay attention to thoughts that I have. If I have and feed thoughts that don’t serve me (e.g.: I’m not moving fast enough in life, I’m not good enough, etc.), I’d have a terrible time being by myself. However, if I choose to not run with my thoughts and instead, pay attention to whatever it is that I’m doing in any given moment, it’s easy to enjoy my own company because I’m fully immersed in said activity.

It’s empowering to know that I don’t need things people, music or nice views to distract my attention from negative thoughts. I can, instead, be selective about the thoughts I feed, be fully present to what is and as a result, be my own company that I enjoy. When you can enjoy your own company, others will enjoy it as well.

Not everything in life will work out the way you planned and that’s okay. It’s not so much as to what happens to you that matters. Instead,?it’s more about how you respond to what happens to you. So the next time life throws you a curveball, I invite you to think about what the experience is trying to teach you and how you can integrate those lessons in your life.

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