Lifestyle Design Part 1: Thinking About The Big Questions

Written by: Orion Webster

As my first post on this blog, besides the introduction of course, I thought I would start by introducing you guys to one of my primary interests: lifestyle design. As you might have realized if you are familiar with the term, or did some basic arithmetic, this encompasses basically everything one could possibly imagine, which is exactly why I consider it to be so important to ponder.

As I stated in the title, this will be a kind of part 1 to lifestyle design as there is so much ground I could cover, and this is unlikely to be the last time I want to write about one of my personally most considered topics, so I thought I would just jump into the basics and step 1 in the hop-scotch of the world of designing a life.

As a kind of logical starting point, for me lifestyle design begins with asking myself a few important questions, and then simply following the rabbit hole of thought until I arrive at something that teaches me about what kind of person I am, and what I want to have, be, and do at a more deep level than I might arrive at simply looking at behaviors that I have or outcomes, as obviously looking at where I’ve been or where I am doesn’t tell me where I want to go, or how to get there.

The question I might start with, could be something like, “what do I enjoy doing that might be useful to others?”. The purpose of the question is first to recognize that not everything I enjoy as a hobby will still be enjoyable if re-framed as work or something I do for compensation. Second, I find that it is difficult for me to feel fulfilled if I do something fun, that doesn’t help others, or solve some kind of problem. Third, because I live in the real world, in order to spend more of my time doing things I love, or would say, “hell yes” to, I have to arrange things so that I can sustain a living and have enough resources to do what I want and amplify it, if I so choose.

As you can see, even a seemingly simple question, if it is specific enough, can be extremely powerful and effective at unraveling what you care about, and how to get more of what you care about, by allowing you to assess what the least miserable options on the table are, or more preferably, what the fun, exciting and sustainable ways to get to your desired outcomes are.

I think I will end the piece here so as not to overwhelm myself, still getting used to the blogging thing, and so as not to expect you to read 40 pages worth of material.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for part 2 where I will dig into the delicate process of making sure we ask good questions, and how we can distinguish good questions from bad, and also examine the quality of our answers.

Have a good one.