An Impactful Experience

My one-month trip is over. I had a chance to visit many beautiful places: USA (Chicago, Boston), Iceland (Reykjavik, Keflavik, the Blue Lagoon), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Rome, Bologna, Ferrari museum in Maranello, Florence, Pisa), Poland (Krakow, Warsaw, Mikolajki, Olecko, Bialystok), and Ukraine (Lviv). I was constantly on the road. I met really wonderful people, went to great parties, and did things that were far beyond any expectations. Of course it's the people that made the trip a great success, not merely the places themselves. During the trip I enjoyed whatever I could see and experience then. There and then!

After coming back to Canada I realized that's the right time to slow down. Stop for a while, think, and write down the observations. Now I know the trip definitely changed me. It changed my point of view, made me more open-minded, and more open to people. I'd like to share with you some of the lessons learned on the road. Maybe you'll find them useful and relevant. You're the judge!

1. People are different. Sure, people are different, that's obvious. In the same way flowers are different. Some people are inspiring, others are fun, yet others are good philosophers. Thanks to this variety of people we live in an interesting world. It was interesting to see the world through the eyes of others.
   
   Once I was surfing a couch and my host took me to the lab to present her workplace. And you know what? She was working on a very cool stuff. She renovates old movies. She showed me a Lumiere brothers' video tape from 1896 and presented the whole process of renovating a movie. It is fairly complicated and requires very sophisticated machines. It is unbelievable how many parameters one can tune when editing a movie. Before that I hadn't even thought of such a job!
   
   Some other time I met an American guy who had a very legit reason to visit Krakow. Namely, he loved Polish poetry and wanted to stay in Poland for a while. Surprisingly, he knew more about Polish poetry than I did :-)
2. Invest in a travel pillow. That was my best-spent $20 ever. The pillow is very universal and allows for a decent sleep on a plane, in train, or even in bed. Even if you cannot sleep, the pillow saves your neck from pain when your head hangs in a weird position.
3. Traveling inspires. Talking to people, observing them, and visiting new places may inspire and stimulate your brain. It  is useful to have a small notebook or a cell phone to take notes and collect ideas! I was inspired to start making own alcohol, growing plants, trying out new music, and creating things myself. I also made a list of places to visit and food to cook.
4. I became more open to people. Probably nothing improves openness as much as traveling and meeting literary tens of new people every single day. After a while it was unbelievably easy to say hi! to a random stranger and have a chit-chat. Wherever it was. Hostels, buses, airports, bars, train stations, bus stops, airplanes, cities. This is perhaps the most valuable skill I picked up during the trip!
5. Being carefree is natural. When you travel there is so much going on that all you care about is a good vibe, unique experience, and great memories. You stop caring about most things that people care about. For example, it didn't matter too much to me whether I was shaved or not; whether my clothes were only a bit dirty, or very dirty; whether other people liked me, or not. I don't mean that I didn't give a shit about the stuff just because I disrespected others. No. I mean that all people care about is themselves. They don't care about me :-) How do I know that? When I was interacting with them, I could see that their responses were based mostly on communication, not the looks or external factors.
6. New friends come and go. Old friends are with you. When you meet people every day, you decide to hang out with some, or travel with others. You go the the club, do sightseeing together, go to the beach, play a game, eat food, etc. The sad part is that the next day you say goodbye and you hope to meet  the other person again. Those short relationships happen all the time. On the other hand, old friends are always with you. It is nice that they want to know where you are, what you do, or just want to say hi!
7. It is hard to keep fit. Normally I exercise and jog every day. It is much harder to do that while traveling. I need to explore this topic further to make sure that my body stays in a good shape.
8. It is important to stop and relax. There are so many things to see in each place. You want to see this, and that, and the other thing as well. You walk fast to make the most of your time. Is it a good strategy? Well, I used to do that earlier, but now I walk slower. I also stop for a day or two to catch up with friends, get a decent sleep, or just read a book. It helps to maintain certain balance between available energy and the force that pushes you further.
9. When you travel solo you meet more people than when traveling in a group. That's true! I was asked many times: Are you traveling alone?
   My answer was always No!
   Although I was traveling mostly solo, I never felt lonely. In every hostel, train, and plane I had someone to chat with or hang out with. Why? I was somehow forced to make friends. That was one of the best things I was obliged to do!

People Are Good

I've been traveling for a while. The first lesson I learned is that people are good. In fact, they are better than I thought!

Take 1: How I Almost Missed Flight to Chicago

Everything started last week when I was flying to Chicago. For some reason my brain thought that arriving 40 minutes before plane departure is OK. And this is what happened. I happily entered the Toronto airport, found the terminal 3, and went to my airline's desk.

- Hello! How are you? I'm flying to Chicago.
- Your passport, please. Sir, you missed your flight. We closed check-in 30 minutes ago.
- Hmmm, that's uncool. How can we solve this problem?
- Well, we cannot do much. OK, I'll put you on the standby list. This is your boarding pass. Fill in the US customs declaration and run to the gate.

And so I did. I was running through the customs, baggage drop-off area, security and then I had to stop. Some guy before me looked suspicious to the security officers. They carefully checked his hand-luggage, which took them at least 5 minutes. Finally, they finished and let me continue my morning jog. It was very healthy. Thank you! I found the gate, full of people and the desk where I could discuss my flight.

- Hello! Could you verify that they checked-in my luggage and I can fly?
- Sure, wait several minutes. I'll ask them
...
- Sir, I've got good and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?
- Ha! Start with the good one.
- Your luggage was checked-in. You can fly!
- Awesome! What's the bad news?
- Well, there is no bad news :-)

Due to the unpredicted delay the entire plane was waiting for me. They were so nice as to check-in my bag and wait before departing. Thanks American Airlines!

Take 2: Free Bus Ticket from Keflavik

After several days spent in the Chicago suburbs I arrived to Keflavik. Iceland is a lovely place but very windy, rainy, and cold. After leaving the plane and getting my luggage I headed towards the desk where they sell bus tickets. The Keflavik airport is 40 km from Reykjavik. There was a guy selling tickets and the conversation was as follows:

- Hello!
- Hi! If you pronounce correctly name of that girl [working there] you'll get the ticket for free.
- Sure, I'm in!

Her name was Hrafnhildur. Actually, it's much harder to pronounce than to spell. Hrafnhildur, Hrafnhildur, Hrafnhildur. The trick is that 'f' sounds like 'b'. OK, I went to see her and said Hello Hrafnhildur! She said she liked the way I pronounced it. And so I got a free ticket (worth 1950ISK = $18) to Reykjavik. That was a sweet deal. Thanks!

Take 3: Couchsurfing in Reykjavik

40 minutes later I was in Reykjavik. Then I a took local bus to my Couchsurfing host. Thrudur was very nice and told me a lot about Iceland. Can you believe that Icelanders can trace their complete genealogical tree online? Everyone can see how they are related with Eric the Red. How COOL is that? Interestingly, there were about 30 generations between her and Eric the Red who died in 1003. Anyways, Thrudur let me stay at her place for 4 days. I hadn't known her before, yet she was very hospitable. What's more. There was another couchsurfer at her place. One night the guy was sleeping in Thrudur brother's bed. When her brother found the guy sleeping in his bed, he decided to sleep on the floor! Thanks for hosting me, guys!

Take 4: Dinner Invitation in Barcelona

One evening I was hanging out in Barcelona with Lidia. She was my roommate from the hostel and she (luckily) knew Spanish. Believe it or not, but people in Barcelona speak neither Polish nor English, so it's great to know some Spanish. Anyways, we were walking around and went to the beach. The beach, however, was far away from the hostel. We were looking for the bus that would take us back. On the bus stop we met a mother with several kids and another woman. Lidia asked them how to get to the hostel. They were all speaking Spanish and it took them about 30 minutes to find the way back. I felt like in one of those latino soap operas!

When the bus arrived we all got on board. It was very crowded but the crowd was happy. The journey took about 30 minutes. The mother was speaking to me in Spanish. She was very expressive, especially with her face and gestures. I was replying in English. Of course my friend from the hostel did the job of Google translator. At some point the mother just asked for a piece of paper. She wrote her email and invited us for a dinner! It's interesting that an unknown person treats you like an old friend after knowing you for a couple of minutes.

How to Optimize Life?

Knowing your goals and requirements is crucial to make the right choices and conserve resources. Ask yourself this question: what do I want? Take your time and think about it for a while. It is such a basic question that defines your goals. Do you really know what you want? Let's say you want to have a motorcycle. A very cool chopper (time to play Born to Be Wild!). Maybe, you'd like to feel the wind blowing through your hair, freedom, and adrenaline. Why would you like to have this particular type of motorcycle? Maybe you're looking for something stylish and with attitude. Whatever it is, it defines you requirements.

Without understanding own goals and needs you can't really focus on what really matters to you. Anyways, let's assume that requirements are well-specified. What is the next step to get what you want? Do you directly go and get it? Sometimes. Other times it is advisable to do your homework. By that, I mean collecting data, doing research, and finding available choices and products offered on the market. Although this step seems easy and requires little thinking, there are often numerous products offered by hundreds of suppliers. Hence, handling this explosion of options makes the decision process hard.

Marketers make things even more confusing. They try to sell the good for price that is much higher that value of the actual good. You must know this feeling when someone wants to take advantage of you just because of your lack of knowledge. They do their best to sell more expensive thing even though it is not best suited for your particular needs.

Now imagine that there are tens of options available to you. Like in a grocery store, where you see tens of laundry detergents that promise to make your clothes cleaner. How to choose the best one? You should optimize the final result by comparing offers and tailoring them to the requirements. Of course, it's infeasible to compare all the offers against each other. A good rule, is to compare offers in pairs and doing that incrementally.

Alright, that was theory, let's move to practice.

Objective: find a reasonable plan for my cell phone. Generally speaking, cell phone plans in Canada are a huge rip-off unjustified by the quality of offered services. For example, often features like caller ID (number of the person who calls you) or incoming text messages are non-free. Ridiculous!

Requirements (usage per month):

• Only pre-paid offers. I travel from time to time, so I'd rather have a couple of SIM cards, than being tied to particular providers.
• 30 minutes of local phone calls. It is more than enough, since most of the minutes are just for incoming calls. For outgoing calls I use Skype. It costs only $3 for unlimited calls to Canada and USA. Similarly, all my international calls go via Skype, so they are either free of charge or at a local rate.
• Free incoming text messages
• At least 200 outgoing messages.
• More  than 200MB of data. Most of the time I've got access to the Internet over Wi-Fi. Data add-on is useful as a back-up for Skype, Maps, navigation, etc.
• Included Caller ID.
• I don't consider it reasonable to pay more than $35 for my requirements.  

Collecting data: first of all, I found a list of mobile phone companies in Canada. I was truly impressed by the number of providers, since I had known only a couple of them before checking out the list. Later, I visited website of each provider and quickly screened offers of potential interest. Majority of offers was very easy to filter out, since they were absolutely senseless, e.g. offered no data for prepaid plans, there was no coverage in Kitchener-Waterloo area, or they required me to buy a phone with the SIM card! Furthermore, I also received customized offers from myCELLmyTERMS. It is funny, because some of the companies are able to satisfy my requirements, but their proposed offers weren't particularly good.

Optimization:

Carrier	Voice	rate	Data	rate	SMS	rate	Total
Fido	15 min	$5	500MB	$25	250	$5	$35
Telus	25 min	$5	250MB	$20	Unlimited	$0	$25

My optimization function returns the cheapest offer that fulfills the requirements: Telus. So Telus seems like a good deal! Or the other way around: some other providers (unlisted here) tried to screw me up. It is worth noting that Fido offers day and weekly data passes, which may reduce data, and consequently, the total cost.

The above case study illustrates how the final offer satisfies the requirements and how requirements satisfy my goals. Clearly, this is a Win-win situation.

The final question is: can we generalize this decision making process to non-financial situations? I believe so. It seems to me that it can be applied to virtually any situation in life, including work, friendships, etc. Should you always conscientiously use it to make the most of life? Not necessarily. For example, when you want to have a fun night (goal), then it's best to release all expectations (no requirements), and let random good things happen (no optimization)!

Freedom

Play the song. Enjoy! Slowly start reading the note. Don't even try to cheat and read without listening to Whatever by Oasis. OK, got the positive note? Good! You are allowed to continue.

"I'm free to be whatever I

Whatever I choose

And I'll sing the blues if I want

I'm free to say whatever I

Whatever I like

If it's wrong or right it's alright"

As you probably noticed I haven't posted any blog note for a while. I know many of you were impatiently waiting for my input but I was occupied with the research and expanding my social circle. I got the chance to meet very cool people who had many interesting things to say. We had several discussions about different aspects of freedom and independence. And you know what? I got to the following conclusions:

1. You have as much freedom as you fight for.
2. Others have as much freedom as you give them. 

Let me explain the two points. As for the first one, it is about overcoming external limitations and boundaries that others put on you. If you think about it, limitations are everywhere around you. They are imposed by the laws of physics, legal systems, religion, society, yourself. Laws of physics are out of discussion, because you're unlikely to change them. Legal systems can be changed but that takes a lot of effort and support of others. Religion - you either follow or you don't. So we are left with society and yourself. I believe that when it comes to your own boundaries they are mostly shaped by the society. In the worst case, they are the result of some unpleasant events and memories associated with past experiences.

I think that while some social laws make sense, many of them kill creativity, independence, and are generally harmful. For example, many people believe that the only way of life is: education, college life, 9-to-5 work, retirement. When I tell them that the life can be much more interesting and adventurous they are puzzled at first. When I give them concrete tips on how to get more freedom and independence, they are rather resistant to changes and often find excuses. As a result, they still have their dreams, but they don't do everything they could do to be free and pursue the dreams. In that case, their freedom is limited and they don't fight for more, although it's technically possible. Are dreams really worth sacrificing them for a stable life? Think and answer the question for yourself!

Alright, the second point. It basically exploits the first one, but reverses the roles. Now you're the person who imposes restrictions on others. One specific case is the way others treat you. Basically, they treat you in the way you want to be treated. If you give people around you too much freedom, they will simply walk all over you. On the other hand, if you give them no freedom at all, they will most likely see you as a boring person who can't even understand jokes. By knowing how much freedom to give, you can be seen as someone who is in control of the situation, but also someone who is fun and sociable.

This is my very short take on freedom. One could talk about the topic for hours, or summarize it in the great song by Oasis. Let me know if you have any thoughts on freedom!

How to Feel Great (Every Day)

Jane: Hi, how are you?
me: I feel really great! You?
Jane: I'm good, thanks :-)
me: Only good? Come on, what's wrong with you!? :->
Jane: haha, alright, I feel GREAT!
...

Jane is a cashier that I met a couple of days ago in Toronto. She probably expected me to be yet another anonymous client whose reply for her question would be 'Good. You?'. That didn't happen. That day I was full energy and extremely enthusiastic. As a side effect she absorbed some of the positive energy and started a short and enjoyable conversation. I noticed that feeling great has positive effects not only on me but also on people around me. The purpose of this post is to help you feel genuinely great instead of just good :-)

If you google for the phrase "how to feel great", the two interesting links pop up: How To Feel Better And Be Happier and How to Feel Great. They mix instant solutions with long term commitments. I recommend reading both of them. Try to experiment and see what works best for you. The interesting thing is that my observations about feeling great are very similar to the pieces of advice from both pages.

Good feelings are a state of mind. I believe, however, that one can tune them up by performing various physical activities. Simply: "a healthy mind in a healthy body" at work. Even though physical activities are fun to do, they are especially beneficial in the long run. The biggest reward is the constant state of being positive and insensivity to minor issues. Feel free to reuse some of the ideas: 

• Exercises. Working out in the morning and in the evening keeps the body in shape. After an exhausting training I feel like I can bench press the world :-)
• Smile. If you are happy, you smile. But did you know that it works in the other direction as well? When you smile, you feel happy!
• Jogging. Running in the morning wakes me up. It is a fantastic way of getting fresh air to activate the brain.
• Cold shower. This is something I discovered a couple of days ago. Jogging + cold shower = a lot of energy for the whole day (don't try to transform this equation :-) ).
• Good breakfast. There are plenty of ideas for lightweight and healthy breakfast. Among other things, I enjoy squeezing grapefruits to get fresh and delicious juice. 
• Working on something interesting. Research is what makes my day. Working from different locations (e.g. coffee shops) makes me more open-minded and allows for meeting exciting people.
• Listening to music. This one is similar to smile: music shapes and expresses your mood. For example, listening to disco makes you feel like having fun, death metal makes you feel like a superhuman, downtempo calms you down, and rock simply makes you feel great!
• Creating music. I started playing the guitar a couple of years ago. Although just for fun, there is no doubt that at some point I'll be a rockstar (yes, my fanclub is on Facebook). Playing loud and powerful music can make you feel like a rockstar right now!
• Dancing. A couple of months ago I signed up for salsa classes. Sure, I'll be a perfect dancer, but the biggest joy is to meet new people and go out of the comfort zone. Why does it make me feel great? Because I can find myself in a completely new environment and see how my dancing skills develop over time.
• Socializing. It is good to have several social circles to spend free time with someone you like, or find amusing, or interesting.
• Yoga. Nothing tames me more than yoga after working out. At fist I breath deeply, think about nothing, just relax. Later, there is time to stop for a while and think over things that happened during the day. The amazing fact about thinking about yourself is that you will never ever feel bored. My experiments showed that yoga works best just before going to sleep. Falling asleep occurs within minutes.
• Sleep. This one is crucial. It's hard to feel great every day while being sleepy :-)

I try to practice most of things every day or in the worst case once a week. It is virtually impossible to go wrong with such a list of activities. Physical activities can make wonders, but they are super-effective only when combined with good attitude, positive thinking, and open-mindedness. What do you do to feel great?

...
Jane: Have a GREAT day!
me:  Have a great day as well!

Feeling Great

"Feeling great is great!"

How to Make People Socialize?

I'm back in Canada after 3 great weeks in Poland and Germany. This morning I was traveling by bus to the university. Just before 9 am I happily entered the bus, said loudly 'hello!', and looked around. Many people looked at me but didn't smile back. Besides two girls, the passengers quickly started looking into the air. Unusual? Not really. My first thought was: why is it so hard to socialize in buses or public places? How to help people socialize? I think the cure is to provide some incentives or just make them socialize...

Last week I attended a Dagstuhl seminar on "Feature-Oriented Software Development". It took place in Schloss Dagstuhl which is a small but very nice castle located in a remote place. In my opinion the venue was scientifically brilliant. Here, however, I'd like to focus on the social side of Dagstuhl.

One of the goals of the seminar was to build and integrate the research community around a very promising way of developing software. Of course, one can organize a conference, invite people, and hope that it will do the job. Would that work? Maybe, but I doubt it would be as efficient as Dagstuhl. Dagstuhl not only encouraged people to socialize and collaborate, but literally made them do so!

1. The location of the castle is not accidental. Its remoteness encourages people to get to know each other. There were basically no other people than the participants. The bus also offers a closed environment, but itself offers no common topics to discuss.
2. All participants were encouraged to present their early work, or perform tool demonstrations. It is great to show the world your hard work and get some feedback. It is also hard to find a person in the bus who smiles back at you.
3. There were breakout sessions where people discussed topics of their interest. If you find one group boring, you can easily switch to another one and illuminate them with your awesome ideas. Well, OK, in the bus you cannot really change social circles.
4. This one is a biggie. Dagstuhl offered very tasty German food. When you are in the restaurant, you can choose your seat. That was not the case in the castle. The seat was always pre-arranged by the staff and at every meal I seated with different people. It naturally made me come out of my comfort zone and socialize. I admit that it is not so easy to talk to experts who know so much more than you, but I was doing good progress :-)
5. For the social event we went for wine tasting. They should serve wine in buses; nothing more to add :-)

Dagstuhl was a great experience. I had many insightful discussions and learned something about social interactions. Comparing to the bus is not fair, but that's not the point. The point is collect the best ideas from where they work and apply them in a new context. Make the world a more pleasant place!

Experiments with Location Independence

This is my last week in Poland. I've met old friends, got to know a lot of new people and visited quite a few places. One of my goals was to evaluate different working locations:

1. apartments (my brother's and my parents'),
2. Biurco (a coworking place),
3. my friend's office,
4. Starbucks,
5. trains,
6. a member-only club.

I considered the following criteria: work efficiency, distraction, fun, and sociability. Each feature was rated on scale 0-5, where 0 means the worst note, and 5 the best. The following chart summarizes my findings:

Ratings of different working locations

Working in apartments, trains, and offices is nothing new, so let's focus on Biurco and Starbucks for a moment. Biurco is a place in the middle of Warsaw. People can rent office spaces or work at any available desk. It is an ideal place for coworking. They provide you with a comfortable chair, high-speed connection to the Internet, water, and coffee. The place itself is rather modest and minimalistic, which makes it easy to focus. Although I was new and most people already knew each other, they seemed nice and happily introduced themselves. Among others, I got to know a director from National Geographic and a woman whose job is to organize parties for kids.

Later I went for a lunch with my brother and friends. It turned out that one of the friends is a member of Skylight Club and proposed to take us for a tour. The club is very cozy and is located in the heart of Warsaw at the top of the Skylight tower. We could see the whole cityscape from there (sorry, I forgot to take my camera). Right after entering the club, I realized that it is a closed business place. The club offers very comfortable seats, books, newspapers, bar with a dance floor, and you can even arrange a meeting with hairstylist or tailor. A number of rooms and facilities allows to quickly switch environment, from busy bar to isolated room. Unfortunately, I didn't work there, since we were short of time. Hopefully I will get the chance to work in such a club next time.

On Wednesday I worked from Starbucks. The cafe is fairly comfortable and attracts all kinds of students. I was seating at a table with a sociology student and high-school girls who were studying for their final exams. Obviously, it was busier than the other places. I didn't mind working in the noisy environment, but it can be inconvenient during online conference calls. It is also advisable to order a drink from time to time :-)

All of the visited places feature different groups of people: independent professionals in Biurco, business people in Skylight, and students in Starbucks. As with everything, there are pros and cons. My general impression of working in different locations is very positive. The point is to learn how to work in a chaotic environment. Coworking is a cure for loneliness for independent professionals, meeting in a closed club is great for networking, and working in a cafe is good for making friends.

The Longest Journey Begins with a Single Step

Original Photo by Marcel Bak

Lao-tzu was an ancient Chinese philosopher. He noticed that even the biggest undertaking begins with something small, manageable, and understood. His saying perfectly reflects the current state of my mind which is a mixture of independence, excitement, and a grain of curiosity. I am about to join the community of digital nomads who leverage the technology to work remotely and live anywhere. The idea of location independence is so stimulating and inspiring that I would like to try the new lifestyle. I love traveling as much as I am interested in learning about other cultures. Digital nomadism allows one to enjoy everything so much more. That's the big plan, or "The Longest Journey" if you will.

Let's move onto "a Single Step". I recently changed my desktop wallpaper to something that resembles a paradise. Simply a place where I would like to live and work. My personal paradise includes a sunny beach, palm trees, and crystal-clear blue water. Whenever I look at the new wallpaper, it always keeps me motivated to do everything to pursue the goal. To make the whole landscape more realistic there are in fact 6 wallpapers that change automatically at 7am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 9pm, and 11pm. They show beautiful beaches with palm trees at different times of the day. Briefly, my 0th step towards digital nomadism is a collection of 6 pictures and a script that automatically switches them.

How far can I get from here? Will I ever be able to live wherever I feel like it? Where is the beach? Is it in Costa Rica? Dominican Republic? Thailand? Or maybe French Polynesia? I'm going to document the whole process of transformation from a young PhD student to a full-time digital nomad. I wanna realize my dreams and I am determined. Keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned!

I'm Back!

After years of inactivity I'm going to reactivate the blog. I removed some of the old posts and edited others. The blog changes focus and will hopefully get much more momentum. My head is full of fresh ideas, interesting stories, and tons of insightful observations. See you in a bit!