What are you planning to do when you retire? Do you hope to travel, spend time with friends and family, take up new hobbies or volunteer to support a cause?
How long will it take you to retire? For average people, it takes about 45 years, if you live that long. Maybe you’re hoping to retire sooner, in 30, or 20 or even 10 years by working hard.
Why does it have to be that way? Why do most of us go to college, find a good job and spend 30-40 years of our lives climbing the corporate ladder only to retire when we’re past our prime?
Why not live the life you want to, right now? Can it be done? Can you live the good life now without being independently wealthy or retired?
Yes, you can live an unconventional life that unlocks the lifestyle of the rich and retired now, while you’re still in your “working years.”
That’s exactly the philosophy behind Lifestyle Design. That’s exactly what I hope this blog will help you achieve.
Lifestyle Design has received a lot of attention lately, ever since Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Ferriss didn’t invent the concept (people have been talking about and practicing various forms of lifestyle design ever since the American Dream became the de facto lifestyle in the West), but he did label it aptly and put forth a number of techniques for designing your optimum lifestyle. Since then, hundreds of other books, blogs, websites and other resources about lifestyle design have been launched.
Just how does Tim Ferriss define lifestyle design? In the introduction of his book, he introduces both lifestyle design and the group of people doing it (the New Rich):
The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).
He goes on to explain how most people simply accept the status quo and never even question if there could be an alternative to working hard your whole life to retire at age 60:
Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. It really doesn’t. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.
People don’t want to be millionaires — they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture. Perhaps rubbing cocoa butter on your belly in a hammock while you listen to waves rhythmically lapping against the deck of your thatched-roof bungalow? Sounds nice.
$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows. The question is then, How can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1,000,000?
Is Lifestyle Design for Everyone?
Yes, definitely, everyone can take advantage of certain elements of lifestyle design. At its most basic level, lifestyle design is about questioning the predominant work ethic that teaches us to become corporate drones, working 40-60 hours or more every week while living for the weekends and a few weeks of vacation every year.
Lifestyle design certainly doesn’t have to be as radical as (Ferriss advocates) outsourcing your life, playing currency arbitrage while traveling the world or creating automated cash-flow businesses, unless you want it to be.
The point is that it’s about examining your life and your goals and thinking unconventionally about how to make things possible now instead of later. It’s about designing your life instead of letting society design it for you.
That’s what this blog is about, and that’s what I hope the blog will help you achieve. Through resources, stories, news, tips and my own personal lifestyle quest, I will show you how lifestyle design can dramatically change your life for the better.
photo by kennymatic
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8 comments add your own
love that tilt shift photo!
“lifestyle design is about questioning…”
Well-said. It’s about examining our life, and wondering why the heck we would settle for what society deems acceptable or normal when it’s clearly not what we want.
Definitely adding you to my reader. I just launched my new site last week, and we share very similar views. Nice work.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it Blake? Those acceptable societal norms are hard to break free from. Defining lifestyle design is the first step in making it happen, but lots of action must accompany the planning and examination. Best of luck with your blog!
-Corbett
Thanks Corbett. Best of luck to you as well; I’ll be avidly following your writing.
Wow! Love it… so glad for stumbleupon. Great article.
Corbett, I had this post saved in Evernote and just read it again. Thanks once again for your commitment to sharing stories, tips, etc about lifestyle design!
I’d love to see something along the lines of what definitively IS and IS NOT lifestyle design as this is something I’m constantly interested in. I realize there’s no official rules or way to lay down the law….but there ARE things that are inherent to the goals of lifestyle design…I see this discussed in debates on location independence in connection with lifestyle design
I have to say, as a new-kid-on-the-block concerning lifestyle design it’s definite worth making sacrifices and taking the plunge.
Take action and do something to change your life. Otherwise you’ll never get out of the rat race. Hell, I blog about it now
-Dean
Corbett, it’s my first time on your blog and I would like to say hello. I clicked on resources and saw that you recommend: Unconventional Guides by Chris Guillebeau. I think it is the best choice from all lifestyle design publications. It is very down-to-earth and not as radical as 4HWW.
I will add your blog to the News section on SwitchStories.com. Good luck with your adventure.