u/Grouchy-Secret-4623

Fo context, I've(23M) been working with the US firm as an AI Product Manager remotely in cybersecurity startup, the pay was very good for my country's standards and I had the full freedom to be located anywhere. And boy did I use it. I made several trips and stints across SEA including KL, Thailand, Da Nang and recently Bali and lived all the highs and lows of the DN life. I always expressed gratitude of the opportunity of how I had a dream life.

Yesterday, out of absolute blue I got a 15 minute invite from my manager, the VP of Product and he announced that they are restructuring the Org, and my role was eliminated with 1 more week left to work with them. I was working as a contractor so no notice period, all my shares remain unvested and probably no severance(need to discuss this further). The boss liked me, and I got along very well with the founder, they mentioned it was not due to my performance but that they now needed someone with more experience on the team. I had started to get under illusion that my job will be safe and I can continue the lifestyle I had gotten addicted to, had so many plans to explore many different countries, fill up my passport and continue to learn.

I am scared that it will be extremely to find another remote role, as they are very rare and almost 95% jobs in my industry are now either in office or hybrid. This has been very devastating for me and I would like to hear if someone here had similar experience and how they came out of it. Since it literally happened less than 24 hours ago, I have not even processed this fully and feel in a very strange limbo, unable to eat or sleep. I do have some savings, and moved back to my parents' home in my country temporarily, but I am afraid I will have to start an in-office job soon.

Tl;DR: Lost my job and hope for DN lifestyle. Need to hear from people who have been through the same.

I hold a passport from a relatively weak country, so airlines and immigration often ask for proof of onward travel.

I want to travel through a few countries over several months, but I do not always know whether I will stay two weeks, four weeks, or longer in each place. Low cost airline tickets are usually non refundable, so booking an onward flight just to satisfy entry requirements can mean wasting money. I want to maintain spontaneity while travel as even I do not know where I want to be after 2 weeks. Maybe Bangkok, maybe Bali, or Da Nang, I want options open, and focus on SEA for my next stint. I have a stable remote income with a US client.

How do experienced digital nomads handle this while staying fully legitimate? Do you use refundable tickets, flexible fares, trains or buses, or some other reliable method?
Context - I am an Indian passport holder with easy Visa access to SEA countries.

I want to understand what do everyday Japanese people live for. I understand that I can't generalize over 100 million people with different backgrounds and economic conditions into a single one. So I will ask your specific reasons, your everyday life, what do you live for.

Are most of them related to money? Like maybe someone wants to start their cafe, someone might want to be a mangaka.

I tend to ask this question when I travel, to a cab driver in Kuala Lumpur, my scuba instructor in Phuket and get very interesting responses. I want to know this for Japanese people, were most things like safety, money, infrastructure is mostly taken care for.

Edit: Seems like everyone in Japan wants to leave it, and the rest of the world wants to move here.

Over past few months, I have been obsessing over Japan. Watching videos daily about the lifestyle, culture. And I can't help but comparing it to the place I grew up in. Japan is total opposite, I grew up in a filthy, polluted, unsafe, poor, superstitious and overall a pathetic country and then I think about how lucky people are who were born in Japan. Even though I earn well, living life is a struggle, what's point of money if I still have to be stuck in traffic, noise, polluted air. Japan has been a hope and escape for me, whenever I see terrible conditions outside, I open videos of Japan, random ones like street interviews, walks, sometimes google maps street view. On one hand it is an escape valve which makes me happy that this exists, but frustrated that I was denied this life just because of geographic lottery.

Is Japan really as utopic as I am making it to be? are you grateful and proud of the wonderful country you got to like in, unlike me? I want to know perspective of Japanese, perhaps someone who has been to 3rd world countries.