NuNomad Location Independent Living, Lifestyle Design, Independent Travel

This post is based on an excerpt from our book, The NuNomad.  If it peaks your interest consider investing in the book.

Are you dreaming about world travel but haven’t made the moves to change your life and make it happen?  Perhaps, like many you’re  thinking you might wait until you have some determined amount of savings, until you’ve established your career, or until your kids are out of high school. Likely you have some very level-headed rationalization about why now isn’t the best time.  Many of us have been well trained to be level-headed.  In fact,  a lot of us have grown up with a common message about how we should go through life. Here’s a typical life template we’ve been given  from parents, teachers, grandparents, etc. for how to go through life:

The Old World Story for Success

• Do well in school.
• Choose a profession and excel it.
• Choose your mate and perhaps have children.
• Continue climbing the ladder of success. You may expect two weeks of vacation a year (or less, if you are self-employed).
• Invest your money wisely in real estate and other diversified, sound investments.
• When you have saved enough money, you may retire. After your retirement you are free to finally enjoy your life as your savings will allow.
• Die a well respected citizen and beloved family member.

Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard some aspects of this plan before. It seems like sound advice. Safe. Predictable. Traditional. Actually, there is so much wrong with this picture it’s pretty frightening. This road map to “success” was drawn long ago in a time when people had much less flexibility than they do now. The social, political, and even geographical landscape has changed.  It’s time for a new map.

The New Landscape
In the last several decades our culture has witnessed drastic and irreversible changes. We now have the freedom to:
• Choose careers based on our own skills and passions—unpressured to follow in the footsteps of our parents.
• Change careers several times throughout our adult lives.
• Access mind-blowing amounts of information instantly at the touch of a button.
• Communicate in real time around the globe.
• Express who we are, be it gay, straight, liberal, conservative, punk, artistic—you name it.
• Move with relative ease between locations all over the world.

However, with this newfound freedom have come some less than positive changes, including:
• The breakdown of the old-fashioned small town community.
• The deterioration of the (so-called) nuclear family.
• The disappearance of the company that had professed a life-long loyalty to its employees.
• The disappearance of economic stability.
• The disappearance of clear cultural expectations that, while they may have been stifling, made life simple.
• The decline of natural resources as well as the health of our planet.

The Realization

Little by little as these changes have occurred in our society we have been awakening. Change, whether positive or negative, is always accompanied by stress. We’ve seen our parents fall into crisis when they were laid off or forced into early retirement by the company they believed would be loyal and economically viable for the duration of their working lives. We’ve seen families trying to maintain bonds over thousands of miles of separation. We’ve seen college students struggling to find their professional identities in a rapidly changing business climate. We’ve experienced an economic collapse which has awakened us from the delusion that playing it safe (e.g.: invest in a house, be loyal to your job and a good pension will be waiting for you, etc.) will assure you economic stability.

And as these events have occurred, we’ve continued to awaken. What are we awakening to? We are awakening to the realization that the old map is no longer working and that the new map requires a new set of values—and risks.
While one may prosper financially we’ve discovered, the hard way, that material riches don’t bring happiness. Company loyalty will no longer guarantee security. Confidence in our economic system can result in depleted accounts and mounting debt. Some of us are forced to live with our geographically separated families and are trying to understand how to maintain intimacy despite the miles.

With new freedoms comes disorientation. Witnessing the breakdown of so many of the structures we once knew, we are left with few guidelines. And yet many of us are still trying to follow our parents’ maps. How many of you have graduated school with dreams about the exciting possibilities before you, to eventually take an uninteresting job in order to pay the bills? Will you rack up debt buying the accessories you crave, to feel “successful,” and get caught in a cycle of working in stifling environments to pay off the debts? Before you know it, years have gone by, and your financial obligations have grown. You are simply looking forward to the two-week vacation from the cubicle and/or home office—and naively hoping you can afford to retire at 65. What the majority has not wanted to look at is that the numbers look dismal for anyone settling even for this eventual release.

The Numbers
In a 2008 survey by the National Sleep Foundation (2008 Sleep in America Poll, National Sleep Foundation, Americans reported that their average work week was 45 hours with 30% of respondents stating they normally worked more than 50 hours per week and 13% stating they normally worked more than 60 hours per week. In addition, in the National Sleep Foundation’s 2001 survey (2001 Sleep in America Poll, National Sleep Foundation), found that 40% were working more hours per week than they had 5 years previously. Higher hours of work, of course, lead to less time to take care of personal needs, less time to spend with friends or family, and higher levels of stress.

In May of 2008, it was reported on Marketplace, a public radio news program that while wages had been constant despite inflation, productivity of American workers had risen by 2%. Productivity is measured in “widgets per hour,” so in other words American workers were making more “widgets per hour” for no raise in pay while their dollars were buying them less and less.

So, we have people working increasingly more hours, working more intensely, without receiving a raise, and finding their spending power shrinking. Let’s project some logical outcomes of this. As people are earning less, they will be able to save less and retirement age will rise. Once they retire their increasingly low wages will afford them very little, so dreams of travel, cruises, second homes, et cetera, may no longer be viable. As said before, stress levels will rise and health will suffer (not to mention the likelihood of injury or death by accident as discussed in the remainder of the National Sleep Foundation poll). As health suffers, disease is more likely and mortality will rise. Maybe you think we’re pessimistic with this projection. Again, let’s look at some evidence.

Will You Live Long Enough to Wait for Your Dreams?

The National Center of Health Statistics reports life expectancy rates for people according to what year they were born in. We’ll use 1960 as an example because it’s probably in the mid-range of our readers. If you were born in 1960 you can expect to live 66.6 years if you are a man and 71.1 years if you are a woman. However, a recent study by Majid Ezzati of Harvard University (The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the U.S., press release April 21, 2008) found that life expectancy in the U.S. is stagnant or worsening.

Now let’s return to our faithful worker who hopes to retire someday. In 2000, the average age of retirement was 62. However, if you retire at 62 you won’t be receiving full Social Security benefits. Let’s assume that because of the economy many of us will need that full benefit. According to the Social Security Administration, if you were born before 1937 you reached “full retirement age” at 65. However, for those of us born later, the age is rising. For our model, and everyone else born after 1960, our full retirement age will be 67.

Wake Up!

Put it all together and wake up! Your life expectancy in the U.S. is worsening. If you happen to contract a form of cancer (the number two killer after heart attack) the age of onset is, on average, in your early 60s. But, your retirement age will most likely be at age 67. So in other words you will likely be sick or dead before you can retire! And this not-so-rosy outlook does not even touch on other early-death scenarios such as a shortened lifespan resulting from accidents or environmental/ecological disaster.   You get the picture. Still want to follow the old map?

For those of us who still have dreams of seeing the world, of doing exciting and interesting things before we die, we have to get wise quick!

Design Your Lifestyle Now

As our society is gradually awakening to what’s going on here we’re seeing a huge movement in the shape of books like The Four Hour Work Week, and blogs from lifestyle designers and social networks for people wanting to change their lifestyles drastically, break out of the old mold, and create something passionate.  You cannot afford to wait for your dreams to happen.  If you have dreams – begin taking action now!  Debt, children, obligations, there is no excuse you can use that someone hasn’t already solved – not only solved but written about and published for you to read and learn from.

Be honest with yourself – do you feel a constant nag inside your head that your life isn’t what it could be?  What’s stopping you from change?  I’d love to hear…

Please leave us a comment and tell us what gets in the way, and then take a look at 6 Stages to Successfully Design Your Lifestyle, and Be a SMARTASS and Design Your Best Life!

Photo by Joanna8555