What I noticed is that although we are all college graduates now, not one of us has a clear direction about where we are headed.  None of us have 5 or 10 year plans.  None of us have concrete career goals, except the one who knows what he wants to do just not how to get a job.  Transitioning from the college experience to life as a “responsible adult” is fascinating to me, especially now that there seems to be a step in between these two stages.

The step in between carefree college student and responsible bill-paying adult generally involves the individual living at home with their parents again.  Sometimes they are unemployed.  Sometimes they have a part-time job.  Sometimes they even have a full time job, which seems a lot more rare.  Whatever the case they are living at home because making it on their own seems too hard or not worth (or possible with) the money they are making.

Too be honest it isn’t a bad idea to go back home after college.  In college I swore I would never do it but then I ended up living at home again for a year after I graduated.  It wasn’t my favorite experience and it wasn’t the best thing for me in some ways, but it did help me save money and get some things paid off before I moved out to be more or less on my own.  Though I went into it feeling like I had somehow failed, I left realizing I had done the smart thing in my situation.

Because of my own experiences I’m a lot more positive and supportive of friends who choose this same path instead of immediately moving out after college.  It’s not for everyone but it does seem to be happening a lot more these days.  My younger brother who just graduated is planning on moving home, and the two friends I met last night are both currently living at home.  It seems like the question is – why not?

I’ve been catching bit and pieces of the movement for a while now and it turns out there is a whole group of awesome people out there blogging, teaching, living the principles of lifestyle design.  I love reading about their lives and what they are doing with the idea of lifestyle design.

What exactly is lifestyle design?

Basically it is the idea that you can live an unconventional life that unlocks the lifestyle of the rich and retired even now while you are still working.  It has been receiving lots of attention ever since Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.  While he didn’t invent the concept, he helped create the terminology and offered several techniques for designing the lifestyle of your choice. Though some have bashed the idea of a 4-hour work week, many other books, blogs, and websites have since popped up explaining how to live a life that defies the status-quo.

Tim Ferris defines it this way:

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).

Instead of chasing money, trying to become a millionaire by working and saving, people can instead aim to achieve the kind of millionaire lifestyle.  Basically it is about trading in the drudgery of working a 9-to-5 for the things we think only money can buy including exciting experiences and exotic travel.

It’s a rebellious version of the “American” dream.

While Ferris advocates some radical ideas, the basic ideas of lifestyle design can be implemented by anyone.  It is about examining your life and deciding if what you want from it matches up with what is happening.  It’s thinking about the things you want to do and then planning to making them happen in whatever unconventional way you can think up.

It’s about choosing what you want your life to be instead of letting society decide for you.

Sounds cool, right?

Here is the thing: this is pretty much exactly what I’ve been thinking and living myself, just without the terminology.

I’ve always felt slightly bad about my decisions before now.  I felt guilty that I didn’t get a full time job right out of school.  I’ve struggled a bit financially but have been continually improving in that area without sacrificing my life to a desk.  It is liberating to learn that I’m not alone in the kinds of decisions I’ve been making or the life I want to live.  It’s freeing to know that I don’t have to work for anyone else if I don’t want to.  If I work hard enough for myself things will work out.  It will be hard work but I’m motivated by the thought that I can design my own lifestyle.