The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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Have you ever gone on a vacation only to come back feeling more tired than before you left? It’s not a good feeling to need a vacation from the vacation, but many of us have experienced that kind of let-down.

The secret to overcoming this feeling is planning some good, productive blocks of “work time” into your restful vacation.

No, I am not a workaholic. The key difference is that the work you do on vacation needs to be the kind of work that brings you energy… not the kind of work that tethers you to your cell phone or PDA.

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I do. It gets lonely out there traveling by myself, spending entire days without talking to anyone sometimes, hanging out in countries where I don’t speak the language and am obviously a foreigner.

My work suffers and I make a lot less money than I could if I stayed in one place for a while; sometimes I don’t make any money at all. It’s funny how people expect you to do something for them when they pay you.

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Even on the path to your ideal world, things don’t always go the way you would like them to. All of us learn of bad news from time to time. The stock market will crash, or an expected job opportunity will disappear. Something that has always been easy suddenly becomes hard.

It happens all the time, and it helps to be prepared to deal with challenges before they arrive. Asking yourself the following questions will help you refocus and know how to move forward when something isn’t going the way you wish it was.

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This is a lesson on how to look absolutely ridiculous in front of a crowd of strangers, and how to recover as gracefully as possible. Well, let’s clarify that a bit: the first part is easy, since I am constantly making stupid mistakes all over the world and trying to minimize the embarrassment. I have no shortage of experience in the dumb-things-I’ve-done-in-random-countries department.

The second part of the lesson is more important: how to recover from your own Most Embarrassing Moment. Anyone can do stupid things, as I tell myself pretty much every time I travel and get lost somewhere. It’s the brave ones who are able to recover.

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