www.BreakingOut.NET » Why I Hate Lifestyle Design

Written by kevin

Lifestyle design.

Everyone’s at it – or so it seems. Live the rockstar lifestyle. Become a digital nomad. Find the way to location independence. Learn the secrets of geo-arbitrage.

The lifestyle design thing seems to have taken off in recent years. Was it Tim Ferriss who popularized the term? I don’t know for sure, but I get the impression he most likely had a lot to do with it.

At any rate a whole army of bloggers are now employing the “lifestyle design” tag in order to promote their websites, information products, eBooks, membership programs and all the rest of it.

I kind of understand where this thing comes from. The desire to cash in on a popular concept that right now is flavor of the month.

OK, maybe that’s a bit cynical. I understand that it’s also a statement in opposition to the conventional nine-to-five way of living. It seems to be particularly Americans who bang on about “lifestyle design”. Maybe because most “lifestyles” in the USA are so damn rut-ridden and the pressure from corporate America and the economic system there on people to conform is so strong.

Here in Europe there’s less conformity and more room for individualism. Particularly in places like Berlin where I lived for several years. Many people there live very unusual lifestyles, but I’ve never heard any German there going on about “lifestyle design”.

Europe has a far more extensive social welfare system than the US does (with very high taxes to go with it). People also get much more vacation than Americans do. And students don’t tend to graduate with such a big mountain of debt to carry (although this is now changing in some cases, such as in the UK). So maybe there is less of a need there to go in for self conscious “lifestyle design”.

But frankly I’m tired of hearing about “lifestyle design”.

Some of us have been designing our own lifestyles whilst these guys were still in their diapers.

Me for instance. My life to date has been far from conventional. And I’m pretty sure it will remain so as long as I live. For example, I studied at uni via an unconventional path. I moved from England to Germany, started a new career there, then set myself up as self-employed. I frequently took long vacations in Asia and the Far East as well as Eastern Europe. All cheap cheap places. Plus I then moved on to another country in Europe. And started another new business. And so on..

Never once with a single thought about any “lifestyle design” when I was doing any of it.

Lifestyle design also comes with this “four hour workweek” concept. The idea is that you spend just a small amount of time working – which you ideally do lying in front of your laptop on a beach somewhere (usually in South East Asia), and the rest of your time hanging out with all the cool dudes in Khao San Road or Kuta, Bali or somewhere.

OK, that kind of life might be attractive for a while. Like a week or two. Although I’m sceptical about taking my laptop to the beach and getting sand in the keyboard. The wi-fi reception might not be too optimal either. And I hate human zoos like Khao San which are full of loud obnoxious downmarket Westerners. Does that give meaning to life? Not to me.

To me, sitting on a beach for more than a couple of days or being stuck amongst hordes of loud Westerners who all gravitate to the same place because they think it’s “awesome” to hang out there has never held any attraction. It’s the very last thing I’d want.

I can’t stand hanging around on a beach for more than a few days and apart from when I was 20 and younger I generally dislike backpacker haunts. There’s only so many times you can tolerate hearing “Hotel California”, “Stairway to Heaven” and “American Pie”. All three songs I heard in a row in a guesthouse cafe on Khao San Road the last time I stopped by there briefly before quickly moving on with a shudder a few years ago.

My other point is that if you’re in a dead end 9-5 job which you hate, then the solution is to get out of the job and do something more meaningful to you. For God’s sake, just quit and be done with it!

There are plenty of opportunities nowadays to set up in business, work freelance or work remote via the net. And it’s also possible to arrange your way of living in ways that do not condemn you to a life of stifling conformity.

This by the way has little to do with the Web as such, nor with any “lifestyle design”. It’s something that some people have been doing for years. In some cases even before the Internet was available to the general public.

And cutting your consumerism, living a life of “minimalism” is also nothing new. This too has been a concept that has already existed for a long time now.

As for “Geo-arbitrage”… People have been travelling to Eastern Europe, India and Asia way way back before that term was even thought of.

I myself moved from super expensive London to cheap Berlin back in the 90s just after the Berlin Wall came down. I got a job in high-paying Western Berlin and took an apartment in newly-opened up Eastern Berlin, the rent for which was back then about 200 DM, something like $80 a month. How’s that for a bit of “Geo-arbitrage”?

Geo-arbitrage sounds like something straight out of the bond-dealing room of one of those crazy investment banks that have been losing billions in recent years. Complex sounding word for something that’s actually very simple.

I think many of us would do well to discount a lot of the “lifestyle design” hype and just get on with living our lives in the ways we really want to. It’s not that difficult and it’s no big deal either.

No need to make out it’s more complicated than it really is. All you need to do is just get on and do it. And hey presto, before you know it, you will have “designed” your own “lifestyle”. Without hardly even realizing it.

John Bardos over at JetSetCitizen.com wrote an excellent post on this subject: Is LifeStyle Design Only for Slackers?

I’m not opposed to the idea of people getting out of the rigid nine-to-five. I’m just tired of hearing all this overhyped “Awesome Rockstar Lifestyle Design” crap.

By the way, Chris Osborne of MyEggNoodles.com has a similar take on this to me. Plus he put it even better than I could in a short video he made…