July 19, 2022
A few pages into The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, I was struck by what Tim claimed to be most people's "plan": work, save money, and "retire" at 62. I have never thought of life in that manner. I will grant that I do not have a fully fleshed out life plan yet; retirement, however, seems a strange concept to me. In Tim's book, what would this average person do after retirement—relax and engage in merriment round the clock? Relaxation can beget happiness, but in my experience, lasting happiness only comes from creation of things palpable and intellectually stimulating such as writings, code, or podcasts.
Tim has made a clear distinction between actions you perform to keep yourself engaged and the actions you perform to make money to sustain yourself. The latter, I presume, is the "4-hour workweek" he refers to. Tim Ferriss apparently advocates minimizing the amount of time one spends on money-making actions while maximizing their impact. However, to me, this dichotomy does not exist. What I have come to like the most—computer science—is as well what generates my income. Thus, I do not seek to minimize the time I spend on it. I have other interests as well, but I also have ample time to pursue them. What truly underlies the success of my pursuing of the aforementioned interests is my own time management skills. Cal Newport, a popular computer scientist and the man behind the term "deep work", comes to mind as another example: he makes money doing what he loves. For Cal too Tim's dichotomy does not exist. Therefore, I infer that Tim is specifically targeting those whose interests have little potency to generate a living. I am thinking of engagements like skiing, hiking, and running.
I sometimes conduct the following thought experiment: What if everybody in the world became an "influencer"? Influencers do not have any value in and of themselves: instead, they persuade those valuable to undertake an action or make a purchase. Thus, if everybody were influencers, there would be no value to capitalize on and the world would collapse. I do not believe "easy money" is the right way to earn a living: there must be creation of value for happiness—I have scientists, engineers, creativists, and designers in mind.
There seems to be another motif in Tim's book that resonates with me far more—the idea of lifestyle design. Lifestyle design confronts you with a fundamental question: How do you want to spend your time? The thought that goes into answering this question puts occurrences, challenges, and actions in the right, long-term perspective. In reading the book, this is the thread I aim to explore further. I always had the concept underlying lifestyle design in my mind, although putting words to it has made it far easier to think about and expand on.