[Photo by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash]
The Odysseus Files, Issue 11
Architecting Your Ithaca, Part 4
Measuring the Cost
[Note: this is Part 4 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Architecting Your Ithaca.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]
TL;DR - Scroll to the end for the takeaways!
We’ve been talking about this idea of building a business that supports your life, not the other way around. Which means figuring out what you want from your life to help guide the vision you set for your business.
We concluded last week’s issue with a discussion about being a “net giver” versus a “net taker,” where the entrepreneur who is impact-minded thinks about both reducing the “cost” of their life and increasing the value they deliver.
Think of “cost” in terms of consumption. Consumption is built into the very fabric of our (western) society: to the point that, when referring to the economy, people are labeled “consumers” and the health of the economy is partly measured by how high “consumer spend” is. In other words, the more we consume - the more we take - the better, supposedly, we are as a society.
In issue 8, we touched on how personal debt has dramatically increased over the past few years, as more people have come to rely on it to fund their lives - a perfect signal of the toxic effect of this consumer mentality.
We all know that the experiences we have, the relationships we build, and the ways we give back create infinitely more value in our lives than the things we own or the “vanity markers” we display in order to “keep up with the Joneses.” Especially given that this was Thanksgiving week for Americans, it seems like an appropriate time to step back, identify the real value in our lives, and look for ways to cut out the rest.
So, this week’s issue will present some alternatives to the materialism all around us. You’ll notice some overlap between some of these ideas and movements, but what matters more than picking one is taking the elements from one or more that resonate with you and building them into your own life.
Let’s jump in.
Seven Paths to a More Sustainable Life
Simple Living
This is a broad category encompassing specific elements of many of the other lifestyle options below. The concept of reducing complexity in life can be traced back thousands of years, through the teachings of most religious systems and, in the secular space, to Epicureanism, which arose in the fourth century B.C. in Athens.
Opting for a simpler life has numerous possible expressions:
Seclusion from civilization: from Henry David Thoreau’s experiment at Walden Pond to the isolated abstention of religious ascetics all over the world
Rejection of modernism, from technology to values systems: the anabaptist movements of the Amish and Mennonites in America
Opting for greater self-sufficiency: at the more extreme end, homesteaders and survivalists
Downgrading the modern lifestyle: the tiny home movement (living spaces) and minimalism (material possessions)
However you apply simple living to your life, chances are you’ll lean into some if not all of these practices:
Reducing consumption, work time, or possessions
Increasing self-sufficiency
Improving your relationship with technology
Simplifying your diet
The Wikipedia page for “simple living” can point you to numerous other resources on the topic, if you’re interested in learning more.
For some, “simple living” in whichever form might feel too drastic of a change from their current lifestyle, which is where the next movement comes in.
Downshifting
According to Investopedia, downshifting is “reducing one’s standard of living for simplicity and improved quality of life.”
What differentiates it from simple living is that it’s a more gradual approach to reducing your dependency on external systems and institutions and it’s often focused more on your personal lifestyle rather than as part of a religious, philosophical, or social stance.
A major part of this is accepting less pay for fewer hours worked, freeing up time and energy to spend on more desirable, valuable activities. There tends to also be a focus on reducing consumption of resources to decrease one’s environmental impact.
Like simple living, downshifting has endless possible expressions, depending entirely on what you value and want out of it. And because it’s a more gradual approach, it gives you permission to implement small steps as you can.
To go deeper into this, check out this article for more resources.
Slow Living
You can think of slow living as the life philosophy or mindset that accompanies movements like those mentioned above. In fact, the concept of “slow living” is derived from the “Slow Food” movement in Italy of the 1980s and ‘90s, which itself was a reaction to the influx of fast food and focused on more traditional food production.
“Slow” is used as an acronym for sustainable, local, organic, and whole (i.e., not processed). It’s about slowing down (obviously) and being intentional about how you live, from connecting deeper with others and yourself to optimizing for lower stress to living in greater harmony with the natural world.
This philosophy is clearly closely connected to the vision for business building we’ve been exploring here through the concept of the “intellectual entrepreneur,” with a focus on stepping back and purposefully designing the business you want to run.
Find more resources here.
Sustainable Living
This refers to many similar lifestyle practices as discussed above, but with the specific goal of preserving the earth’s resources and reducing one’s environmental cost.
One way of conceptualizing this is seeing sustainability at the intersection of three overlapping spheres: economic, environmental, and social. Where a process is economically viable, environmentally acceptable, and socially equitable, it is sustainable.
For in-depth discussion and resources across all domains of sustainable living - shelter, power, food, water, transportation, and waste - see the Wikipedia article on the subject.
Permaculture
Permaculture is less a personal lifestyle choice than a regenerative approach to managing your lived environment. It is, at its essence, about modeling how nature works in the way your home and life interacts with the physical world around you, whether that space is as small as a yard/garden or as large as hundreds of acres of farmland, pasture, or woods.
Permaculture principles are based in whole-systems thinking: how the interaction between your home, food production areas, and natural environment works together to create an ecosystem. The aim of permaculture is to ensure that ecosystems continue to improve in health and robustness, the opposite result of how most people manage the land they live on.
The point of including permaculture in this discussion is that, if you interface with the natural world at all, even if just within a small backyard, applying basic permaculture principles to managing that space can help you reduce your dependency on outside resources while boosting your overall health and wellbeing.
Homesteading
Homesteading is perhaps the most tangible approach to living out some of the principles and practices above. The primary focus is self-sufficiency, especially in areas like food and energy production. Done right, homesteading can free up resources for other priorities while helping you slow down and be more present.
The downside to the homesteading movement is that it can be very isolationist. Homesteaders can offer huge value in terms of the skills and knowledge needed to live out some of the above values, but are often too inwardly focused on their own homestead to spread that value beyond to other communities. In this isolationist environment, homesteading can eat up enough time, money, and energy as to make optimizing for leverage and impact in your life and business challenging.
However, these downsides can be offset by the final movement below.
Transition Towns/Ecovillages
These are slight variations on the idea of a communal approach to sustainability. These communities leverage practices from several of the above lifestyles/philosophies to achieve their aims.
While you might initially imagine this to be a group of likeminded people who pick up and move to a single location to start a community from scratch, this concept of communal sustainability could also technically apply to a group of suburban neighbors who decide to collaborate on creating a more self-sufficient, environmentally-friendly space between their homes. The core principles could even be applied in an urban environment, say, through people living in the same apartment block collaborating on a rooftop garden to reduce their dependence on grocery stores.
Takeaways
The common theme in all of the above lifestyles, philosophies, and models is practicing greater sustainability in our personal lives, families, and communities. By simplifying and reducing our dependence on outside resources, we create the space to be more intentional, to slowly build to our vision for our lives and businesses instead of feeling the pressure to rush.
Chances are, this topic won’t convince you to start a homestead, join an intentional community, or make some other major life change. The point of this discussion is more about thinking through what actually matters to you and your family, then being mindful about gradually shifting your life to better align with those values and desires. Hopefully, it’s opened your mind to the possibility of not accepting society’s status quo. Of choosing creation and value adding over constant consumption.
If you did go deeper into any of these movements and see anything that resonated with you, I’d be curious to hear what that is. Hit “reply” and let me know!