How to try (and probably fail) to conciliate career, family, and community in the nomadic life
Given that these three topics will be flawed, the following months and years will determine how I'll lead my life
The neuroscientist
, from , wrote recently a great article titled “Choose two of the three: career, family, community”.A little shot of wisdom I’ve repeated privately throughout the years: for a happy life you are allowed to pick two of three categories. You must choose two of career, family, or community. Implicitly, this comes with a warning—try to maximize all three and you will fail at all of them.
This text led me to profound reflections on life and the nomadic lifestyle. Therefore, I've decided to share how I've been trying to harmonize career, family, and community —and possibly failing— so that future nomads know the challenges that await them.
Career
My professional life is divided into three axes: a job as a social media editor in a journalistic project about the Amazon, a weekly column in Folha, one of Brazil's largest newspapers, and this newsletter.
I share a familiar feeling in all three: I wish to do better.
I've been working as a social media editor for eight years, and I'm proud to have created viral threads for Folha on Twitter at the beginning of Bolsonaro's government in 2019. I was innovative in using humorous language to counter attacks the former president made on the newspaper, which allowed me to become a reference as a social media figure in journalism.
Nowadays, I'm doing the same social media management work in environmental journalism, which is a new area for me. I do a decent job, but I'm constantly thinking, "What will be my next big shot? What case am I creating?" I need to combine the platform language with solid knowledge of environmental journalism. I've been investing time in that, but not as much time as required. The anguish and internal pressure are constant.
My weekly column in Folha is in the #Hashtag blog, and it is about social media and technology, topics I immensely enjoy. I've been writing there for eight years, four as an editor, and one in this nomadic life. I've written proud pieces, like when I "interviewed" ChatGPT. But it's a challenge to stay informed and write one text per week while diving into environmental journalism and working on this newsletter.
These are three completely different subjects. My father always told me: "He who does many things does none of them very well." I'm not following his advice. He also did many different things simultaneously throughout his life, so life may force us to aim in various directions.
I would love only to do this newsletter and dedicate myself to projects in this nomadic life. But bills need to be paid, and this is impossible with only three paid subscribers. One solution would be to dedicate my financial reserve solely to better structuring these projects. But when I did that for three months, the anguish of uncertainty and seeing the money draining away left me mentally disturbed.
That's why I've been doing regular and consistent work on No Direction Home, which I'm happy with, but I also often wish it were better. Internal pressure is constant. My goal for 2024 is for this newsletter to have even more relevant content. I'm glad that quite a few qualified readers have joined in recent weeks, which motivates me a lot.
Family
I'll divide this topic into two parts: the family we're born into and the family we form.
In general, I'm a person who likes and gets along well with family. At the end of last year, I took my father to the Paul McCartney concert in Rio de Janeiro. At the end of the trip, he told me that when he dies my bills as his son will be paid. It's a compliment I'll never forget.
But it's undeniable that I feel less present with my family than I would like. The nomadic life keeps you constantly on the move. Even though I go to my parents' city every two or three months to see my nephew grow up, I think: if I can live wherever I want, why don't I spend more time with them? There's a limit to coexistence, which in my case is about seven days.
To compensate for this, I take my father to the Paul McCartney concert or take my mom to spend a week at the beach every six months. But it's not easy to hear my nephew say on the phone, "When are you coming to play soccer with me, uncle Mateus?"
And even when I am physically with my family, it doesn't mean I can fully dedicate my attention to them. As we saw in the career topic, I have a lot of things to deal with. However, my father often says, "I worked hard, I regret not having enjoyed your childhood better," so maybe it's a more structural problem of our society and human and family relationships.
Regarding forming a family, this is almost contradictory to the nomadic life. Before becoming nomadic, I had a long-term relationship with someone I really liked. The natural path would be to start a family. But at 32 what I really wanted was to travel around. And never forget that nomadic life is a perpetual drama of love with deadlines.
I would have been a family man many years ago if I lived in my parents' or grandparents' generation. With its multiple choices, our generation allows choosing not to have children or even having them later, a reality that is becoming increasingly common with egg freezing. Who knows if I will have a family in the future? Or will I remain nomadic forever?
Community
I'll address the community in two senses here: one of the friendships and the other of collaboration and contact with people in the city.
I see my friends less and less. Some are in São Paulo, a city I only visit every two or three months. This means I have to condense seeing many people into a few days, which is tiring and not always possible. Sometimes, you have to select who to meet. This is also somewhat symptomatic of adulthood, when these meetings naturally become rarer, especially when people have children. Another portion of friends is spread worldwide, or the connection is no longer as strong.
At the same time, the nomadic life has allowed me to travel with friends, like in Buenos Aires and Rome, and spend more time with them, which can be good and bad. I also try to be in cities where I know many people.
In terms of community, the nomadic life allows for incredible stories, like when I was invited to a barbecue at a couple's house in Montevideo. I met them in the beer line at a bar. There, I felt integrated into local life, being introduced to what would be a Uruguayan community life. However, this experience of local life is brief, and I will never be a true local.
The nomadic life is generally lonely, no matter how much you meet people or have relationships.
In all the topics of this post, there's a "but," something incomplete. Indeed, choosing two out of these three would make life easier. Trying to excel at all three is practically impossible. But what choice do I have? I can't abandon my career, I won't stop seeing my family, nor will I give up friends, random encounters, or trying to live like a local.
Given that these three topics will be flawed, the following months and years will determine how I'll lead my life.
And you, how do you handle with this trio of career, family, and community? Do you agree that it is impossible to conciliate the threes?
What a thoughtful, honest post, Mateus. Combining all three elements is problematic as distance creates separation. Sometimes with adults that closeness can be retained. It's probably more difficult w/ children, like your nephew, b/c time works differently for them than adults. Remember how long it would take for Christmas to come every year? You're doing really important work so maybe you can prioritize. Like say, for this coming year my #1 thing will be X. See how that goes, and move onward. I don't know, but I think it's a good thing you're ruminating on it. To me that means an answer is in the offing.
Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts. The part I was struggling the most was community - then I realized that I could find purpose in community... locally. Literally contributing in my own neighborhood (which is hugely influenced by spanish/latino culture, which brings home closer). I also found a way to intertwine community and career (some of my freelancing job is also to support local individuals). As far as family, I made peace with myself that my time in Brazil is limited (love your "there's a limit to coexistence"), because I decided to live a life that is non-conformist with other people's (parents, family, friends) opinions. It is always a work in progress, but self-kindness and acceptance is always the answer.