To move to Buenos Aires was to trust my intuition.

It meant trusting the truths I had uncovered during my travels and stepping outside the script. Decisions like that carry weight. If they fail, they reinforce the belief that the safest path is the only path. But for once, those fears didn’t matter.

After so much time in motion, I finally landed somewhere that fit. Buenos Aires gripped me in a way no place had before. It aligned so naturally with my envisioned lifestyle: slow living, a strong sense of community, green spaces for decompression, and an old-school charm that made everything feel intentional.

I recently ran my first marathon—a grueling experience that left me with far more than just cramped quadriceps and a medal.

For three months, I ran 3 to 8 miles during the week, with Sundays reserved for steadily increasing long runs.

During these long runs, I often questioned why I chose such a time-demanding goal, especially when life already felt sufficiently full and erratic. Yet, I stuck with it, running each week. As time passed, I began to notice a few lessons that applied beyond running.

The mindset required for marathon training mirrors the mentality needed to tackle many of life’s challenges.

The boy remained silent and looked upon the sailor’s trinkets in the case. His eyes wandered as he imagined himself at the helm of a ship bound for Spain.

Don Facundo watched on, remembering when he, too, dreamed of daring expeditions near Egypt, stormy Atlantic crossings, and moorings off the coast of the Brazils. His father-in-law's tales had been his own dreams once.

Alas, Don Facundo was one of the many who failed to pursue their dream for fear of what that dream would manifest into once turned a reality. Dreams like those are safer remaining dreams.

This is no argument in favor of complacency. Nor do I encourage anyone to aim for less than their best any given day.

It’s a call for perfectionists, optimization-addicted automatons, and the all-in-or-all-out types to take a breath.

Failing occasionally is natural. Allowing that failure to perpetuate across weeks, months, and years is only when it becomes detrimental.

I was curious to walk this stretch though. What would it be like to cross a border on foot that most cross in a vehicle? What would the feeling of standing between borders be like? Will I be alone? Do I have anything better to do anyway?

The final answer was clear: if there was one resource I was flush with as a solo traveler, it was time. Albeit, having failed to account for delays due to an unnecessary distraction by a momma hen and her chiclets followed by a less agreeable encounter with a posse of stray dogs, I had relinquished even that luxury.

Another car whisks by me, vrooming out of the customs house and kicking up a cloud of desert dust in its wake. A shoulder would be nice on this road. All 35 liters of my backpack sit heavier with each step.

Critics might argue it’s delusional to treat a life chapter with a defined end date as permanent.

I would argue it’s equally delusional to treat a life chapter with an undefined end date as such.

A year later, I’ve joined their digital ranks. While still a fledgling in the brigade in many ways, I’m beginning to understand where the source of this discontent may stem. It is where many nomads deviate from a path ripe with growth opportunities and instead ravage on into a limbo as meaningless as the one they fought to escape at their domestic desk jobs.

This is the existential, privileged, curious case of the disgruntled digital nomad.

Do not be deceived when the guidebooks tell you that the “Buenos Aires experience” is standing underneath its looming obelisk and attending a tango show, for the most authentic thing you can do in Buenos Aires is wait.

If we continue to let the tastes of others determine which experiences to try, then we are succumbing to a one-dimensional reality limited by the bias of someone else, akin to allowing the title of artwork to restrict our creative interpretation of it. Continuing to take reviews, recommendations, and titles like these at face value will, at best, achieve a life of experiences that other folks would enjoy more than we would.