How to Become a Nomad: Embrace Uncertainty

This is post #3 in the “How to Become a Nomad” series. If you missed the previous posts, click here and here to catch up.

I had just returned to Canada after three and a half months of working and travelling in Europe. I was out for a morning walk with my childhood friend and her dog, and we were discussing what I’d be doing next.

“So, it’s the end of August, and you still don’t know if you have a teaching job in September?” my friend asked incredulously.

“Nope.” I responded.

“So you have no idea what you’ll be doing in a week’s time? Where you’ll get money? How you’ll be filling your days?”

“Nope. Nope. Nope,” I replied again.

“And you’re OK with this?”

My mouth started to form another “nope”, but then I reconsidered. “I have to be,” I said with a shrug. “What can I do?”

“Huh.” My friend snuck a sidelong glance at me as her dog ran up ahead of us. “Well, you don’t seem that worried.”

“I’m not.” It was true. My application was in at a school I’d worked at before. I just had to wait until they sorted out their staffing situation. If I didn’t get the job, I’d find something else. I knew I had a trip to plan for mid-December, but hadn’t really started, so that was all up in the air as well, somewhat depending on my work situation and how much moolah I made between September and December. “Like I said, what can I do?”

I was even a bit surprised by my nonchalance. A bit. What surprised me more was that it wasn’t an act. I really felt fine with all possible outcomes. Cool as a cucumber.

It was the moment I realized I’d learned to embrace uncertainty.

It’s a freeing feeling, really, being OK with many of the possible options of what could happen in your life, feeling like you can handle most any turn of events, as long as they don’t involve some harm to someone you love. It’s wonderful.

Get the job, not get the job. Travel now, travel later.

And it’s sort of the way you’ve got to be if you want to be a nomad, moving around all the time, new places, new faces, new challenges, new problems.

Make the train, miss the train. Make the flight, miss the flight.

You don’t know what’s coming next and you’ve probably got very limited control over it. You’ve got to work to not let that keep you up at night.

Sometimes, that’s easier said than done.

I’ll admit that I still think about the future and wonder what lies ahead. Like I said, I work contract jobs and never know until the last minute if I’m hired or not. I’m waiting on Italian working papers so I can’t plan much if I don’t know which country I’ll be in… But do I fret?

No.

Does it keep me up at night?

Only the excitement of it all.

That said, embracing the uncertainty of the future is a lot easier to do when you’re standing on a solid foundation. Read more about that in my next post, “How to Become a Nomad: It Takes a Lot of Planning to Be Carefree.”

Practical Italy: Managing Expectations

I’ve noticed that people come to Italy with high hopes and wrong hopes. I should know, I was one of them. I told you about it here.

How can hopes be wrong? They’re personal! You disagree.

Ok, let’s call them unrealistic hopes. Unrealistic expectations. That better? Good.

Ricominciamo da capo. Let’s start over.

People sometimes come to Italy with unrealistic expectations and are sometimes sorely disappointed when the Italy of their dreams isn’t quite the Italy of their reality. Starry-eyed travellers thinking that vintage red Vespa is everyone’s principal form of transportation here and that they’ll be the only ones trying to throw coins in the Trevi fountain at 10pm on a Saturday.

I hate to break it to you, but no.

Not all of Italy looks like Tuscany, you won’t magically learn Italian in two weeks and you’ll probably never escape the hordes of other tourists at major sites.

But how will I know this if it’s all new to me? You ask. How can I be realistic if I have no idea what to expect?

Here are some pointers:

Do. Some. Research. Use your Google machine. Talk with other people who have been to Italy. It’s no big secret what Italy is like. People have been there before you and they’ll probably be happy to tell you about it.

Really though, it’s not even so much your expectations that will determine whether your time in Italy is magnifico or orribile, it’s your attitude towards things when your expectations aren’t met.

Scenario: You order a pizza in Italy and it doesn’t have globs of gooey processed cheese all over it like at home. You like globs of gooey processed cheese and were really craving those cheesy, gooey globs after your long day of sightseeing. You look at your practically naked (cheese-wise) pizza and you have two options:

1. Complain, turn your nose up, whine and be a general nuisance to your travel companions and anyone within 50 feet of you. Snivel, pout and ask God why he just can’t make the Italians do things like you do back home. Especially the pizza! Refuse to eat it. Fantasize about that cardboard, cheese-laden pizza from home. Go hungry in Italy.

2. Cut your pizza, stick it in your mouth. Chew. Repeat. Enjoy it for what it is: different from the pizza you’re used to at home, but probably marvellous in it’s own right. 

Now, which do you think will make you feel happier?

If you chose answer #1, just stop reading here. You’re a lost cause. If you chose answer #2, bravo!

Take it from me: you need to start off your trip to Italy with the general expectation that “everything will be different“. But even that little maxim needs an “and I’m OK with that” chaser.

Add in a touch of “and if things aren’t as I expect, I will be open and flexible about it” and really you can’t go wrong. Control-freakishness does not lead to happiness. Not just in Italy, but anywhere. Mi raccomando! 

If you honestly think you can’t stomach that, then stay home per piacere, and leave the Italy-enjoying to the rest of us. Really. The milk here doesn’t taste the same. McDonald’s doesn’t taste the same. Coca Cola doesn’t even taste the same. Brands are different. Systems are different. Chaos is the prevailing form of organization. Customs are different. Ideas are different. Traditions are different.

But that’s why you wanted to come to Italy in the first place, isn’t it?

So when your shower suddenly turns icily cold after 15 minutes and you’re used to 40-minute showers at home, steel yourself against the frigid water (or turn it off quickly) and think “this is what I came here for”.

I’m not talking about the cold shower; don’t be too literal on me. I’m talking about difference. That’s what you came here for. To see how other people live. To see how other people, in my humble opinion, live pretty well.