Channeling Thoreau, or Living Deliberately
It’s called lifestyle design, but it’s actually an old idea. The Greek philosopher Socrates said the unexamined life was not worth living. The American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…” More recently, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury yelled “Get me out!” For Annie and me and the kids, we examined, deliberated, and got out. We rethought our assumptions and goals, separated the essential from the extraneous, and made choices. We have left the regular corporate world and started our own companies. We have left California and moved to the East Coast. We have started to home school our children. Learn more by reading on.
 The decision to leave California was easy and hard. I had been living and working in Silicon Valley for over twenty five years. I moved West after growing up on the East coast and going to college in New England. I had worked as a technical writer, project manager, and qa engineer at a variety of software and internet companies. I had owned a home in San Jose, had hundred of thousands of stock options at various companies, and generally did my share of rodent wheel spinning in the Silicon Valley rat race. While I made money on the sale of my house, the options didn’t amount to a hill of beans. The culture of work frowned on vacations more than a week (I’ll write later about my two, three and five week vacations). The culture of youth meant anyone over forty, experienced, and opinionated was usually disqualified you for employment in any start up.
More broadly, California was slowly killing itself through its proposition system. Notice became too common that in our school district teachers, librarians, and other staff, considered essential in a sane society, were being laid off. Buying a home in any decent neighborhood in the Bay Area required at least one of the following: two parents working their asses off, luck in the ipo lottery, or inherited wealth. Add to this litany of complaints the usual problems of traffic, drought, crime, and earthquake risk.
But let’s be clear: there are a lot of great reasons to live in northern California. And the hardest part about leaving California was leaving our great friends. But we knew we’d eventually end up someplace wonderful, and they could all come visit us there. The question was, just where would that be?
Photo Credits: Socrates from www.livius.org; Thoreau from www.blackcrayon.com; David Bowie and Freddie Mercury from www.fanpop.com
Like this post? Get more like it straight to your email in inbox
Sign-up for Free here
Lets talk: Would love to know your thoughts. Leave your comments below
Hey Blake, just finished reading Walden. Thoreau nailed exactly what everyone on the mnmlst wagon is trying to do.
He makes me feel bad for owning multiples of anything! (And he was kicking around over a hundred years ago!!)
Where are you guys travelling around at the moment?
Andrew,
It’s interesting how each generation must rediscover certain truths. Here we are thinking about what we need versus what we want.
You might also enjoy this: http://tinyurl.com/3ce2utw.
We are enjoying Spring in Montreal.
Cheers,
Blake
Hi there, if you are looking for annie, my facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/annieandre