My fears

29 Jul 2020

This is going to be a big change and I naturally have some fears. I’m listing them here so that I can review them a few months later to see how far they were from reality

Not knowing enough Japanese

I started learning Japanese when we moved here, so a year ago. I am fine handling most everyday situations (refusing the bag at a shop, paying with card, ordering at a restaurant). I have also done things like ordering takeaway on the phone and registering my new bike, but overall a lot of things I figure out mostly based on the context without understanding most of the words, and I use just enough words to make the others figure out what I want. Fortunately Japanese service is all about doing everything for the customer, so it works out most of the time. Still ordering in a restaurant and messing up something vs. misunderstanding my next landlord and not having a place to stay has a very different risks.

Overall I’m looking forward to this as an opportunity to improve my Japanese, but still there is a chance this will cause me some inconveniences.

Too much

I like to travel, but I also like returning home. I don’t know if constantly being on the road is something I’ll take well. I hope, but I haven’t done anything similar, so it might be too much, and then I’ll have to figure out something. Overall I like to fail forward: instead of returning back to a “known good state”, try keeping the new stuff and solve the situation within those circumstances.

Not having enough place to book

There is no information on how many people use the service, or how many places are free at any time. If it turns out to be hard to find places, then I might end up staying in hotels more often than I would prefer to.

Work-life balance

Ever since I’ve been working from home I was trying to separate work and personal life, having a dedicated place to work from and only work from there, limiting the time I work etc. However all the physical separation will be gone by this change. On the other hand I’m mostly worried about working too much, and being in new locations, meeting new people will probably help me not fall into that.

On the other hand I also want to make sure this new lifestyle won’t have a massive negative effect on my productivity.

Giving up and having to buy everything again

I’m planning to give up my current apartment and sell / give away all of my furnitures, electric appliances and even some of my clothes. This is liberating, but also scary: what if this whole thing doesn’t work out for me, and I end up going back to renting an apartment, and end up having to buy everything again. It’s mostly not about the money, but the hassle and feeling bad for the environmental damage.