This Intentional Happiness Lifestyle Design Thing

Some people do well living life without particular goals or a sense of purpose. I am not one of those people.  I have been making plans since I can remember.  At the start of every year in grade school I would inventory my clothes and create a chart detailing which outfits and hairstyles I would wear each day.  At the beginning of this year, I created a chart to detail what I would eat each day, making sure that each meal was based on the key ingredients in each week's grocery list. Each week of the month features a different vegetable and legume.

Fifteen years ago I created a seven year master plan that saw me through graduate school. And then things fell apart (the moral of the story being: Make longer master plans). Falling apart took three years (I'm stubborn) and I have spent the five years since then trying to figure out the meaning of life (and why everything happens in odd numbers of years).

When I picked up Tim Ferriss's book "The 4-Hour Work Week", I was married, had a house, a dog, a husband, his car, was paying two mortgages, and was a corporate law firm associate on Wall Street. Having a child was the next goal - just like it was supposed to be. Looking back, I see how I was following the rules that our society insists is the right one: Wait for happiness, plan for success. So there I was with all this success, a ton of responsibilities, not a lot of happiness, and this book that says, dump it all, be happy. I read the book eagerly then put it aside. It all sounded great but . . .

Life took care of all that stuff for me and now it is time for a new plan.  I've had five years to think about it and here is what I've come up with.  Rather than planning for success, I am planning to be happy. With every part of the plan, the central question for me is, will I be happy?

There are three major parts to the plan:

• How I shelter myself
• How I give and receive value
• How I care for my embodied Soul

How I shelter myself will likely be the most challenging aspect of this Intentional Happiness Lifestyle Design. It will take the most planning and take the longest to achieve so I'm starting with that.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly developed the urge to live on a bus. I can't remember exactly how it happened but I learned of people who have transformed buses into amazing living spaces.  It took another couple of weeks for me to understand why I feel so passionately about living on a bus.

Leaving my house is one of my least favorite things to do. I love to be at home. By myself. With a good book, or writing, or watching a movie.  At the same time, I adore traveling and exploring new places. Living on a bus allows me to travel and be at home at the same time! It is perfect!

Here is an example of a truly impressive bus conversion.  It's like the Taj Majal of buses.

There are other options. For example, check out this tiny house on wheels. What I love best about this video is hearing the home builder and owner, Dee Williams (who owns fewer than 400 things) talk about why she was inspired to live in a tiny house and what doing so does for her. Her explanation basically describes why this kind of living would contribute to my happiness. She is my hero!

I'm giving myself three years to achieve this goal. I need to raise money to build whatever it is I decide to build and find the expertise to help me do the work. That leads me to my upcoming blogpost: figuring out how to pay for this project!

P.S. No, this is not a three year plan. I've learned my lesson. There is actually a forty-year plan in the works. It involves splitting time between two different continents, becoming a farmer, having 100 children, and living in a hut. Yes. Really.