What if you could design a life you don’t need to escape?
What if you could design a life you don’t need to escape?
I mentioned a few weeks ago I’ve been working on a series of articles on how I set up a slow life I don’t need to escape. Let’s go!
Everyone agrees life today is too crazy too, too fast, too disconnected.
All you want is some relief, to relax, to exhale. Without constant notifications. Without back-to-back meetings and deadlines, and non-stop hustle just to tread water.
Saying “no” doesn’t seem possible. But you feel so controlled, caught on a string that jerks non-stop. It’s too much, too overwhelming. You just want this craziness to end.
But a menacing thought has been cropping up more frequently. It catches you off-guard during the worst possible moments.
“I can’t keep doing this.”
You already know you’re not alone. Millions of people stopped doing this craziness after the pandemic when faced with the sad mess of their lives. Millions more forced their own internal slowdown by “quiet quitting” on the job.
Recent stats paint the grim picture behind these trends.
95% of employees feel external pressure to work overtime (2022)
37% of employees say they are overworked (2022)
33% say they lack work-life balance (2022)
Burnout has risen to 40% globally (2023)
I know the never-ending exhaustion of long commutes, only to turn around and do it again. The struggle to keep your focus high under deadline pressure when an incorrect fact could mean disaster. It took me decades of runaway vacations to realize there was a better way, even though my intuition had been telling me so all along.
You won’t find answers in a Google search
Internet self-help and productivity influencers offer a variety of answers: minimizing your lifestyle, optimizing your schedule and rewiring your mindset. Don’t get me wrong – these tactics are helpful in attacking the symptoms, but don’t get to the cause.
The problem is that the context for the answers is rooted in the same context as the problems: Meaning, nearly every piece of advice you’ll find is stained by the underlying belief that our over-the-top productivity culture is the only way to achieve our best life.
Einstein nailed it when he said: “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”
How do you design a life you don’t need to escape?
So, where do you find the answer?
We’ve forgotten what’s encoded in our DNA – that we’re hardwired to cycle with the rhythms of the natural world. We have a natural OS that we’ve overridden to the point of mass burnout, illness and yes, death.
I’m not talking about buying expensive gear or doing yoga by a secluded lake. In fact, you never have to leave home or get dirty. More later.
Eventually I found my way out
As some readers know, I “escaped” from my native Detroit to the mountains in North Carolina 13 years ago. It was a six-year journey.
Three signposts kept me on track:
Absolutely clear focus on what I wanted and didn’t want
Letting the experience of the journey open me to possibility
Expecting to be surprised by the unexpected
Tomorrow I’m going to tell you what I learned from decades of searching for answers. More importantly, I’m going to tell you how to take what I learned to make improvements in your own life.
Until then, ask yourself: Can you keep doing this? What if this sh+t doesn’t stop?
See you tomorrow
