Heading for a conference a few hundred kilometers north west of Stockholm. It’s not very far north but farther north than where most people live in Sweden anyhow. It strikes me how few people we have per square kilometer in this country.. It is very relaxing though to glide through the fields and forests.
No it’s not a UFO.. It’s only Globen in Stockholm flying by on my bus ride back from my office. I know I should be working during the day and sleep during night.. But once I get in my flow state it’s hard to stop.. And also this week I have yet another deadline in one of my projects.
The beautiful scenery of Stockholm flying by while going the office. Happy feelings after two weeks of productive work combined with nice hangout with family and friends.
One of my biggest goals these last few years have been to become free.. Free from having to be in a certain place at a certain time and free to do what I want when I want it. I feel now that I am closer than ever before to this dream.
The day finally came when I had to say goodbye to my friends in V Residence. A little bit sad of course since I have gotten attached to this place after having stayed here for almost two months.
After the two hour bus ride I landed at my hotel in Bangkok and then had some time for shopping at the big shopping centers in Siam area (MBK and Siam Paragon).
Two months is quite a good amount of time to try a new environment out. I will write more about it soon and also post some unpublished photos from my trip (my visit to Koh Lan amongst others).
Tomorrow I will be back in Sweden if everything goes to plan. It will surely feel a bit strange to b back in the colder climate etc but on the other hand really great to be seeing friends and family again.
I must admit it. Songkran was a lot more fun than I had expected. It’s a real party and just a joy to see everyone happy and connecting through this wild water festival.
Thanks to my friend who has lived here for a long time I was guided to the most intense Songkran streets a couple of days ago.
Unfortunately I didn’t prepare so well for the photographing, so the only thing I managed to do was extract a few images from some otherwise lousy video clips that I managed to get from the action zone..
So here you go. Today and tomorrow are holidays in Thailand and the Songkran festival reaches its peak. I had hoped to be able to join the party today. But unfortunately some work on my computer I got in between. Tomorrow I hope to be able to give it another go and to get out there play. And hopefully also bring you some better pics from the party 🙂
Being a digital nomad can be a lonely business. This I have heard many times in YouTube videos etc, of people living this lifestyle. And I totally understand why. You work and travel. And you can’t bring all your friends.
As simple as that. Often times you cannot bring any of your friends. I have had this in mind even before I decided to try this out for myself.
One great thing that I think will help a lot to cope with this challenge is the fact that there is now already tenth of thousands of people who live this lifestyle. And that means that there are a lot of people looking for others to hang out with.
The online communities is a really cool way to socialize and exchange ideas. And the coworking spaces is another. Yesterday I went to check out the Anchor coworking space in Jomtien. I was lucky enough to find a guy outside who was using this space already for several months and that could tell me all about it.
The Restaurant at Anchor Coworking Space, Jomtien
Before returning back to the hotel, I decided to take my first swim in the
ocean for this trip… Guess the pool is very convenient.. But there’s something special with the beach and the ocean, I have to admit.
Came across this video today. It reminded me that one of my plans for this blog was to walk about my own meditation routine and what benefits I experience from it.
I actually learnt the basics of meditation from a book when I was about 17 years old. I have been doing it on and of since then, and my plan is to make it a daily routine just as described in this video.
Please stay tuned for more posts on how to use meditation and other rituals to program your mind and body for more success and a happier life.
One thing that often happens when I go to Thailand is that I get a motorcycle and then after that I don’t get so much exercise.. I also eat more sweets for some reason.. Probably because it’s cheap and available everywhere.
Somewhere along the road I look myself in the mirror though and realize I have to do something drastic. Now I have some experience on this so I now know what measures I can take to fix the situation.
These are the typical steps:
Today for the second day in a row I took a walk on the smaller streets towards city center. I walked around long enough for the twilight to arrive and for the night life in slowly come to life.
Today I also had one of my favorite dishes on the way home from the “city walk”, the Wonton noodle soup which was only 45 Baht and tastes delicious.
It’s a routine by now. It’s pretty nice with routines. It’s like a routine in a non routine situation. It’s like the nice combination of comfort and daily excitement.. If that makes any sense 🙂
My experiment over the past few weeks have been to try to get some work done. It’s like I didn’t really trust myself a 100 percent to have the discipline to handle my work decently when being on the other side of the world.
So that’s why I have really put my main focus on work and daily practicalities. It’s like I wanted to prove to myself that I could earn my living working away from home.
I have a couple of deadlines in the last few days and I took the chance of getting quite a few hours of work done. So now my confidence has grown quite a bit and I feel pretty sure that I could not only make my living working away from home, but actually develop my business as well and increase my salary over time which feels very very nice.
To me it means that I could be on the road, traveling around as long as I would want to. I guess this is really what I have been dreaming of for a long time. So it’s a really cool feeling arriving at this point. I feel so happy and grateful.
The Sven Melander
Lucky me there is Internet. Except that I do most of my work via Internet, I can also stream high quality content (this case The Sven Melander, live) thanks to this marvelous invention.
