It’s 8 pm on a summer evening. The sun is kissing your front porch. Your garden is gorgeous, the flowers are booming red, yellow, orange and white. Your grandkids are playing make-believe running around on your front lawn. Your children are on a hammock having some much-needed quiet time. Your better half is asleep in their special chair. You sit down to watch the sunset, the sun turns from a bright yellow to a pinkish red, and you can stare at it and watch it drop down to the other side of the Earth. There is no worry in the world for you. Your mind is quiet. You are in the moment. Happy, calm, peaceful. 

As the sky loses light, you think over your life, all the ups and downs that have made you the person you have become. That has brought you to this very moment. Your own land, your own family, away from all the noise of the city and corporate life. You smile because you are grateful for everything that happened in your life. You didn’t just accept it but embraced it, you took it on with both hands. Amor Fati.

And now you close your eyes to fully relax and sink into your chair. And you take a deep breath and say to yourself, “Life is good. Because you made this happen.”

We have power over our lives. To structure, design, build, maintain and use.

There is a movement going around on the internet, and the impact of covid really launched it into existence. 

The idea of lifestyle design. 

That you shouldn’t start with the job you want, how much money you want in the bank, or where you want to be in 5-10 years’ time. No.

The best way to do it is, to Begin With the End in Mind. That’s Habit 2 from Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I highly recommend. 

When you Begin With the End in Mind. You can work backwards from where you want to be. Envision yourself with your ideal life. Reverse engineer, dismantle the parts and break it down until you figure out how to want to live day by day. Build your lifestyle. 

Friedrich Nietzsche once said “Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”

It doesn’t matter what we are currently doing with ourselves, we have the power to take control of our life.

 

The definition of an engineer is: a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or structures. 

The verbal definition is: design and build (a machine or structure).

You are the machine, your body is the machine, to be put to work at the gym, your mind is the machine to be used for a creative act, painting a picture or building a character through theatrical performance.

Your life is what you can structure, design and build. Your body is the machine. And it’s up to you to maintain through the choices you make.

See…

We’re all engineers. 

Design your life in such a way that it meets all of your needs. Make it bulletproof. You have the ability. You are the engineer of your life. 

Until next time,

Brody