I haven’t eaten meat since 2008. I’ve shunned all animal products since 2009. I own less than 130 things (and dwindling). I live 4,000 miles from home because my favorite basketball team plays here. For the past three months, I haven’t paid any rent. Next week I’m quitting my 9-to-5 job and setting up a location-independent, minimalist business. Six months from now, I’ll move to a foreign country where I don’t speak the language.

This is all very unlikely.

Rewind seven years. I was working in a department store in Ireland, trading my time for money, had been for quite a while. I’d dropped out of college. I didn’t read much. I watched a lot of TV, played a lot of video games. I felt uneasy about any kind of change. (I remember one of my best friends inviting me to his 21st birthday party an hour away. I said no. Too much of a break from my routine.)

In short: back then I was content to follow all the rules, avoid taking risks, live the default lifestyle, settle for mediocrity.

Now, not so much.

I see and hear many people say they can’t do certain things. They can’t change their diet. They can’t make their own money. They can’t pick up everything and move to a foreign country. They can’t live life on their own terms. They can’t follow their dreams. They can’t make a positive difference in the world.

“I don’t have it in me,” they say.

Bullshit.

See, I didn’t have it in me either, but I do now. It’s not something you’re born with. It’s something you learn, a mindset you develop. If you don’t want that kind of mindset, fine, but make your choice consciously.

Johnny B. Truant wrote recently about choices. When you say you can’t do something, when you think you don’t have it in you, that’s a choice you’re making. Other people less resourceful and less privileged than you have done such things, because they made a firm decision and stuck with it. They made that thing their priority and killed all else that interfered.

What we’re talking about here is freedom. That’s what non-conformity means to me. No, I won’t just live how everyone else is living, or how some people expect me to live. I’ll make my own choices rather than take the thoughtless, default route.

You too can develop that mindset. It’s not that hard. Read a few books. Question everything. Figure out what you really want and commit to paying the price.

Care to join me?

In December of 2007, I finally realized my dream of living and working in New Orleans. I had started actively pursuing that dream about four years prior. All I wanted was to be in the city where my favorite basketball team played. I would watch their games and write all about them on the website I had started back in Ireland.

A couple of years later, things had gotten even better, as I had earned a media credential which allowed me to attend games free of charge, sit along the baseline each night, and even interview players and coaches in the locker room before and after each game.

Oh, and the website had become affiliated with ESPN.com, solidifying it as the go-to source for educated analysis, opinion and discussion about the New Orleans Hornets.

And then I started losing interest

There were nights when I really didn’t feel like going to a game or interviewing anybody. There were nights when I would have preferred to be doing anything else. Those nights became more frequent as time went on.

For a while I resisted how I was feeling. I felt obligated to keep running the website and doing all the work because that was my identity. I was the Hornets guy. Everybody knew me for that. I’d moved 4000 miles away from home because of a sports team. That was me. How could I walk away from it all?

Eventually I accepted that I really didn’t enjoy covering the Hornets — or any basketball for that matter — anymore.

So why was I still doing it?

It was because I still held onto that identity, afraid to give it up because it was safe and familiar.

But it was making me miserable at the same time. When I finally did give it up, I felt liberated, and I was free to craft a new identity for myself.

Now that’s not to say I have any regrets about moving to New Orleans or running the Hornets website for all that time. On the contrary, I’m extremely grateful that I was able to live out my dream and meet some great people along the way. I’m also very proud of the online community of Hornets fans and the good reputation we’ve built up over the years. I’ve been working hard this past summer to ensure it carries on strong without me.

The lesson I’ve learned though is that dreams change

And you can’t go on living a dream that has faded and died. You can’t carry on being who you’re expected to be if that identity doesn’t resonate with you anymore. That just makes you miserable. You have to let go, and perhaps risk being lost at sea for a little while until you figure out your next move, your next identity.

Having left my old identity behind, I’m now free to spend my time, energy and focus working towards my new dream. I’m much happier for it, excited about the path I’m on and the person I’m becoming.

What old identity are you clinging to? Would you be happier in the long run if you let go? Who might you become if you started again from scratch?

These are legitimate concerns and I’ve thought long and hard about them. I’ll give you some of my resolutions at the end of this post. First though, I thought it would be a good idea to ask people who are already living the vagabond lifestyle to share their first-hand experiences. I was delighted to get back thoughtful responses from Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle, Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity, and Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months.

Colin Wright, Exile Lifestyle

Colin moves to a different country every four months, as elected by his readers. Right now he’s in Thailand, having just completed an epic two-month road trip across the United States. His thoughts on relationships as a location independent professional:

Basically, so long as you’re able to slightly adjust the way you approach relationships, you’ll be fine.

What I mean by this is that as Americans, we’re fed a VERY specific idea of what it is to be happy (a la the American Dream) from a very young age. Disney movies, sit-coms, Saturday morning cartoons, they all reaffirm this philosophy, and at the end of the day it leads back to consumerism (but that’s a different conversation).

The end result of this programming is that we believe the only legitimate reason to get into a relationships is if it will potentially end with marriage, kids, a dog, a trampoline, etc. Unfortunately, if you’re traveling this goal may not be realistic, as being in a long-term relationship can be a special kind of torture (and make you miss out on all kinds of opportunities), and building a relationship while you travel in the first place can be incredibly difficult due to time and geographic restrictions.

The important thing to keep in mind is this: you can have very strong connections with people without there needing to be marriage in your future. In fact, I would argue that these connections can be even stronger because there is a time limit.

It’s like the difference between spending your whole life saving for retirement (and only then letting loose and having old-man fun) and saving a little now, but mostly enjoying your life while you’re young. Relationships are an investment, and though you SHOULD leave yourself open to the possibility of something longer term, you should also most definitely allow yourself to enjoy life now with life-minded people who may not be looking to wait for retirement to enjoy everything the world has to offer.

What this means in practice is mini-relationships. Since I started traveling I’ve had only a few of these (I’m picky), but the ones I’ve had have been great, if short. Unfortunately it seems like I never meet someone I really like until I’m about to leave the city they live in, so I’ve had a few whirlwind weeks of dating and excitement and fun. Leaving really sucks, but it’s good in a way, because then we both have a time-limit and neither feels like we need to get hung up on little problems like couples normally do. What reason could there possibly be to argue if you both know that you’re only together for a week?!

SO, there’s that.

When it comes to non-romantic relationships, I would say that traveling gives you the chance to build more, stronger relationships than you could have staying in one place.

Sure, if you live a static lifestyle you can meet a handful of people and get really close because you’re always around each other, but in a way this is kind of like saying your brother is your best friend…well of course he is, you’ve had no choice but to be around him for 20+ years.

On the other hand, there will be people you meet while traveling that you are able to interact with in person for only a handful of hours (or less!) that you stay in touch with and reconnect with and learn from and teach for the rest of your life. I already have a few people like this in my life, and I wouldn’t give them up for the world, despite the fact that we’ll likely only see each other in person every couple years, if that.

The Internet definitely gives us a lot of ammunition when it comes to building relationships, too, because it allows for quick followup and incredibly casual rounding out of a person you only met briefly. There was a girl who I shared a few afternoons with in Lima that I ended up staying with for a week while in Auckland. She’s a super-rad person, and if we hadn’t been able to keep in touch via Facebook and email, we may never have been able to get to know each other better.

So I guess my main words of wisdom are don’t worry! The way you approach and manage relationships will change a bit, but the opportunity to create even stronger bonds more than makes up for any initial uncomfortableness you may feel about the prospect.

Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity

Chris is on a mission to visit every country in the world before his 35th birthday in 2013 (he’s about 80% done as of this writing). He also just released his first book — The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World — which I’ve already devoured and highly recommend. His thoughts on relationships as a vagabond:

It’s not a problem for me for a couple of reasons:

1. First and most importantly, I do have a home base (Portland, Oregon) and I’m there at least as much as I’m elsewhere. I don’t go out or do much when I’m home, but I have a small group of close friends that I see often there.

2. Second, much of my community is online — so wherever I am, I spend a lot of time connecting that way. I understand that some people feel that online relationships are superficial, but I don’t share that belief.

3. Lastly, as I travel now I meet with readers and colleagues wherever I go. Again, some people might feel that those relationships are superficial, but that hasn’t really been the case. Instead, I’ve found that I have a ready-made community in many parts of the world. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Benny Lewis, Fluent in 3 Months

Benny is a fellow Irishman. When he was 21 years old, he spoke just English fluently. Now he’s 28 and speaks 8 languages fluently, having immersed himself in many different cultures over the years. He’s currently living in Budapest, on a 3-month mission to become fluent in Hungarian. His thoughts on relationships as a well-traveled polyglot:

I have reached a sane balance, but I haven’t reached a perfect balance just yet. I have accepted that many relationships I have must be somewhat superficial, while I will work to make them as deep as possible despite my short stay. I maintain relationships with all good friends online and meet up with people again regularly, which is always fantastic. Facebook and MSN have been essential in making sure that I keep in touch and then help me see the people again to form even deeper bonds.

Maintaining romantic relationships is notoriously difficult because as a traveller you already have this stamp of sailor-with-a-girl-at-every-port that will make so many girls sceptical, even if you are genuinely interested. And I have seen long-distance romantic relationships break down so often that I would never attempt to keep one alive myself unless I was absolutely sure she was “the one”. I am honest about this from the onset. Ironically however, many of my romantic relationships end actually because she has to travel away! The circles I associate with means I spend time with other travellers a lot, but I’m a more “fixed” traveller so when something seems to be going well it ends because she has to go home or elsewhere. As I said, irony – people expect me to be the one going around leaving broken hearts all over the world

So my “words of wisdom” on the topic are that most of us are still figuring it out ourselves Travel makes you wiser in so many ways, but in other ways I’m just as confused as any other 28 year old about these matters!

A few of my own thoughts on relationships as a vagabond:

Quality vs. quantity

A common argument is that you’re better off having a small, tight circle of real friends than a massive sprawling web of shallow connections. But that’s only looking at quality vs. quantity from one direction. The assumption being made is that you can only have so many deep and meaningful relationships because you only have so much time; you need to spend lots of time with each person to form a deep and meaningful connection.

But what if we apply the quality vs. quantity concept to time? What if we cut out all the small talk and the time sitting together, speechless, watching crappy TV shows? What if we started being more upfront with each other from the start instead of trying to feel each other out, waiting to see if it’s safe to share how we really feel? What if we started making better use of what little time we have with each other?

Sometimes a minute is all you need with someone to change their life or vice versa. If you fail to see the potential in those meetings, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be a part of such change.

I take solace in the fact that I’ve gotten much better at introducing elephants and being myself around people from the get-go. I believe these things make a huge difference in the quality of my relationships.

Either/or

Either/or thinking is not thinking with integrity. I believe you can have a handful of those thriving, long-term relationships while also building and maintaining many casual acquaintances. You don’t have to choose one extreme or the other; you can maintain a balance.

I’m satisfied with the balance I maintain. My cousin, back in Ireland, has been my best friend for more than a dozen years. (We only talk once a month via Skype, but we’re still as tight as ever.) I’m single now, but when I’m in a relationship I treasure the close and intimate connection. I have several friends here in New Orleans who I enjoy spending regular time with, and several more back in Ireland who I’ll always consider best buds. But I also have friends on Facebook who I’ve never met. Usually, at a party, I try to meet and connect with as many people as possible, even if there’s a good chance I’ll never see those people again.

And then there are the in-between friends; people who I haven’t spent a lot of time with, but what time we do spend together is always quality. We get right to important stuff, talk deeply and listen carefully. I may not get together very often with such friends, but I believe I know them and that they know me better than many couples know each other. You can form deep relationships quickly when you’re constantly working on your awareness and you have a genuine interest and curiosity in other people.

No worries

So, am I worried about missing out on those deep and meaningful friendships as a vagabond? I can’t say that I am. If anything, I’m excited about finding more of them. I understand and respect the fact that some people prefer to maintain a small circle of close friends, hanging out with the same few people every weekend, but that’s not for me. I enjoy meeting new people too much, connecting with different folks in different ways, seeing what I can learn from everyone who comes into my life.

…

Many thanks to Colin, Chris, and Benny for their responses above. I hope you’ll take some time to explore their websites. I’ve learned a lot from each of them.

So I gave vegetarian a try in January of 2009, and six months later I ended up vegan. I found that those diets worked great for me. Here’s why you should get selfish and try them, too.

1. Practice self-discipline

I believe in building positive habits. The more you practice something, the more ingrained it becomes. Before you know it, it’s second nature. You can’t accomplish much in life without self-discipline, and self-discipline is something I get to practice every meal and snack time thanks to veganism. I know all that practice has helped me in other areas of my life. I’ve become very good at forming new habits and sticking to plans I make for myself.

Of course, you can practice self-discipline at meal times without being vegan. Maybe you cut out gluten, or you use the Weight Watchers point system, or you don’t eat anything with primary colors. While not every restrictive diet will be good for your health, it will help you build some self-discipline muscles.

2. Less choice, more happy

If you’re vegan, you’ll undoubtedly have less menu items to choose from when you go to a typical restaurant. I see this as a good thing. Less choice leads to less indecision and less regret. Before I was vegan, I would often spend ten minutes scouring a menu, then order the chicken dish while wondering if maybe I should have ordered the meatballs or the fried shrimp instead. But these days I usually only have a handful of options to choose from on the menu, so I can order faster and not worry so much about the opportunity cost.

See, more isn’t always better. Smart people call this type of thing the paradox of choice, noting that folks are usually happier when they have less to choose from. That could be you!

3. Focus better, think clearer

The main thing that attracted me to plant-based diets initially were the reported mental benefits I heard from various people who had already made the switch. Sure enough, I also found that I could think more clearly and focus better once I cut animal products out of my diet.

One explanation I’ve heard for this is that animal products require a lot of energy for your body to digest, energy that could otherwise be used for mental functions. Foods like fruit and vegetables are digested much faster and more easily. I believe this ties in with modern cancer treatments, which increasingly involve putting the patient on a plant-based diet so the body has more energy available to fight the disease.

Please note that I have no scientific evidence to back this up, so take my words here with a grain of salt. All I know for sure is that I’ve experienced these mental benefits after switching to a plant-based diet, and many others report the same. Try it yourself and see if it works for you.

4. Embrace change

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.” – someone not named Charles Darwin

Routines and habits are important, but it’s equally important to try new things regularly and push yourself out of your comfort zone. That’s how we learn and grow. I believe my experiments with plant-based diets were among the best learning and growth experiences of my life. I learned a lot about food and the food industry, discovered the truth behind a lot of veg myths, and met some great new people. More importantly, I got to know myself a hell of a lot better. Change and adversity will do that.

…

Beyond those four, there are lots of other positive things veganism can do for you. For example, you’ll undoubtedly become a better cook, your skin and overall health will improve (as long as you’re not just eating vegan junk food), and you’ll find it easy to fight the flab (how many fat vegans do you know?).

So get selfish. Be good to yourself and try a plant-based diet for 30 days, see how it makes you feel. I’d advise against going straight from omnivore to vegan though. Take the vegetarian bridge to avoid overwhelm.

Good luck!

(Want to learn more about going veg? I wrote a lengthy piece about my experience here.)

Origins

The term lifestyle design was coined by Tim Ferriss in his bestselling 2007 book, The 4 Hour Workweek. Tim was describing the process of figuring out what you want your life to be like, and then actually going out and making it happen. So if, for example, you want to quit your soul-sucking 9-to-5 job, start a small business where you get paid to do work you’re passionate about, all while traveling the world, the advice in Tim’s book would help you do that.

Ferriss wasn’t the first guy to start living life on his own terms, but he deserves a lot of credit for opening people’s minds and showing them the possibilities. And for giving the movement a name.

What’s in it for me?

(And by me, I mean me, not you. But you’ll probably figure out what’s in it for you as I tell you what’s in it for me.)

So, what appeals to me about lifestyle design? In a word: freedom.

The 4 Hour Work Week helped me realize just how brainwashed I had been by modern society, where the priority is always work-work-work and spend-spend-spend. I was spending most of my time as an easily-replaceable cog in the machine, following orders, collecting my paycheck, waiting for the weekend. And I’m still doing that as I write this, but I’m awake at the wheel now, and I’ve set a new destination. I’ve decided to live on purpose, rather than accept the traditional lifestyle that most folks so easily fall into.

What is the traditional lifestyle?

It’s trading time for money instead of value for money. It’s having to ask permission to take a day off work. It’s someone else deciding what projects you do all day. It’s spending the healthiest years of your life in a cubicle, waiting until you’re old and retired to regain full control of your schedule. It’s buying lots of crap you don’t need in the name of entertainment, to compensate for the dullness of your day job. It’s spending eight hours in the office on a Tuesday, despite getting all your work done in the first two. It’s the long wait for Friday, starting on Monday. It’s pumping out work that countless other people could do, rather than expressing the unique art inside of you.

That lifestyle is no longer for me. I’ve decided to choose freedom instead, which is why I’m quitting my day job in November and moving back to Ireland to start my own location independent business.

Reality check

But of course such freedom comes with a sobering dose of responsibility. If you want to break free of the 9-to-5 and design your own life, you better get yourself some self-discipline and some big cojones, because I don’t believe it to be easy. For one thing, there’ll be no regular paycheck every week. For another, you have to make all the big decisions, take all the big risks. Oh, and if you get lazy and decide to spend all day on Facebook and Youtube, it’s not some big faceless corporation that loses a smidge of productivity; it’s you that might be living on nothing but noodles for the next week.

Is lifestyle design for you?

Lifestyle design is for everybody, but it might not be for you right now. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to embark on this journey two years ago, but I believe I am now. I believe I can make a living doing what I’m passionate about, and I’m willing to work hard and smart to make it happen. I know I can make the necessary sacrifices to achieve my goals, and I’m able to surround myself with a supportive group of people who will help and inspire me along the way. I know all this because I’ve set and worked towards lots of goals over the past few years, and I’ve learned what it takes to reach them.

Lifestyle design isn’t yet for you if you fear embarrassment or failure. It’s not yet for you if you fear change. It’s not yet for you if you’re unsure of your passions. It’s not yet for you if you care more about the destination than the journey. It’s not yet for you if you spend all day on Facebook. It’s not yet for you if you’re opposed to hard work and sacrifice.

Lifestyle design is for everyone who feels frustrated and trapped and knows there must be more to life than pushing buttons all day and collecting a check. There is more. You’ve just been led to believe that this is the right thing to do because the vast majority does it, too. But you don’t have to. You can choose different. You can design your own life.

There are no excuses. Lots of other people are already doing this. People with families, people young, people old, people rich, people poor, people in debt, people with much less intelligence and resources than you. It’s very possible. All it takes is hard work and discipline. Being honest and wanting to help people doesn’t hurt either.

What do I know?

Who am I to fill your head with all this stuff? I haven’t even done anything yet. I’m still here working 9-to-5. For all I know, the real world of entrepreneurship and location independence might be too much for me to handle. But hey, I don’t identify with where I am or where I’ve been. I identify with where I’m going. I know what I want, and I have a good idea of what it will take for me to get it.

I often look ahead several years from now, try to visualize what my life will be like. And I know that if I don’t take the plunge, I’ll still be in a cubicle in 2020, still pushing buttons and collecting a paycheck, missing out on so much of what life has to offer. And there’s no way I can let that happen. That’s the worst-case scenario for me. My own business might fail and I might end up in the gutter, but that wouldn’t be as bad. With that scenario, at least I’d have given it my best shot, chased my dream with everything I had. That’s far more acceptable to me than living life on the default setting.

Just think

I don’t expect you to quit your job tomorrow. I read the 4HWW two years ago, and it was only recently that I decided to take the plunge. I’m not trying to convince you to drop everything and embrace a life of change and uncertainty. But I would like you to start thinking about it, start considering the possibilities, start dreaming of how things could be, start looking around for opportunities, start believing that you could break free if you really wanted to.

An increasing amount of people are doing it. You can too.

Equally important, is guarding yourself against people who dampen your creativity and passion and big thinking. I truly believe that I can make a significant, positive impact on many people’s lives as long as I’m here on Earth; I can help make the world a better place. I believe, that when I die, the world will be better off for my having been here.

That’s how I feel. That’s what I work towards.

And recently I’ve been realizing that I need to surround myself with more people who feel the same way about themselves. There’s huge power in a group of like-minded people coming together, working together, encouraging one another. Many of my friends, as much as I love them, are content with settling for mediocrity. That’s all well and good if it makes them happy, but it doesn’t always serve me or my lofty goals well to be around them.

To quote Marianne Williamson:

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

Now I’m not about to ditch a bunch of my friends because they can’t help me achieve what I want to achieve. They’re good people with good hearts who I often enjoy being around. (Plus, I realize friendship is a two-way street, not solely about what I can get from it.)

What I do need to do though, is find a better balance. I need to be around more of those big-thinking people who believe they can change the world. Because they’re precisely the ones who will, and I want to be right there with them.

Perfection is an impossible goal, and you’re almost certainly setting yourself up for failure if you set out to achieve it. A much better plan is to aim for improvement. Small, constant improvements, day after day, week after week.

Don’t beat yourself up if today didn’t turn out perfectly. Ask yourself, was it better than yesterday? or was it better than this day last week? this day last year?

Besides frustration and dejection, aiming for perfection can also lead to inaction. That is, you don’t even know where to begin so you don’t begin at all. Examples of this:

• Timmy realizes that eating animal products is a pretty bad idea, but he can’t fathom the thought of eliminating all animal products from his diet. And so, he doesn’t eliminate any.
• Sally would like to help out at a local homeless shelter, but she’s worried she won’t be able to commit to helping out every Thursday night. And so, she doesn’t help out at all.

Both Timmy and Sally have analysis paralysis (also known as procrasterbation). They’re thinking it’s either all or nothing, perfection or bust. Timmy would of course be much better off if he started with something as simple as Meatless Mondays, while Sally’s help at the homeless center would surely be appreciated even on an irregular basis.

What positive change have you been postponing, telling yourself you’ll make it happen when you have more time/money/whatever? What one small step could you take immediately to move you closer to your goal?