You Are Here: Mapping A Life On A Highway To Yeah
Today’s open mic I was looking forward to attending was canceled. The reason is that there is a Celebration of Life event planned for earlier in the day, and the host is facilitating it.
A man I met a couple of years ago named Eric has passed. He died of pancreatic cancer.
He was a friend of the host, and I think others in the community. Unfortunately, I didn’t know him really at all, just his name, and our interactions were awkward.
The first time I met him, I used a music stand so I could refer to my lyric sheet for a song I was still learning. He had to give me crap about it after my set.
“How can someone write a song and not know the lyrics?” he said, not so much as a question but as an assessment and statement of displeasure.
I tried a couple more times to be friendly, but it never got anywhere.
He never really seemed to want to get to know me, and I didn’t see a reason to keep trying. Ships passing in the night, I suppose.
But I had just seen him in mid-July. I had seen him a couple of times at other open mics this summer, too.
Since the last time I had seen him, a summer or two ago, he had lost weight, appeared a bit haggard, and I thought he was probably recovering from a surgery or illness.
I was wrong. Way off.
It’s so weird when one day someone is there, seems to be okay, and then the next thing you know, they are gone.
It’s uncanny.
But that’s death, isn’t it?
Well, with that Sobering introduction, let’s move to the purpose of today’s article.
let’s get back to designing a life of joy, fulfillment, and adventure.
Let’s get out on a Highway to Yeah.
Let’s not keep putting it off.
It’s time to move.
Today, I wanted to take a moment to pause and take a look at a roadmap that has been emerging over the last five and a half months.
It is a roadmap that I think we can use to help design a radical lifestyle that can help us get out on and stay on a Highway to Yeah.
Getting out on a Highway to Yeah is many things, but one of the core aspects is your own developmental journey.
What helps you move further down the road towards the never-ending quest?
This is one Map, a framework of sorts, that has emerged so far.
Personal Myths
The existentially grounded, relatively unconscious, personal narratives.
These are the stories you are living from and within.
they are shaping your character, your in-the-world lived experience (personality, behaviors, attitudes, habits, etc.).
Core Values
What matters most to you.
These can be slippery concepts, and much more nuanced than most people who write and speak of values seem to address.
You may value freedom one day, and commitment the next. You may have to relinquish one type of freedom to see the commitment through. You may need to develop more freedom to be able to commit to something you care about.
However, there is a pattern or a constellation of values that will emerge for you.
But it requires continued perseverance to increase your awareness of what the heck really does matter to you, versus illusions, delusions, or expectations might tell you to value.
Identity (or Identities) and Roles
Real-world, day-to-day conceptions of yourself.
Each one is a sort of “I am” that describes “me” to others and yourself.
Life Vision
What it is like to be out on and living on a Highway to Yeah. How you describe it.
This is where your Myths, Values, and Identity/Roles point to the kind of life that the type of person you really are, your truest and most authentic self, is wanting to live.
Radical Lifestyle Design
Intentionally shaping your environment and commitments so they support the vision.
For example, I am testing a “back on campus” type of apartment. That shapes my environment when I am there.
And I have implemented One Hit Wonder year-long commitments that I think facilitate bringing my Life Vision into more of a reality.
Daily Rhythms
How you embrace and live from a place of radical time freedom, day to day.
Once you have achieved FIRE, you will likely free up at least 50% of your time to do what it is that you want to do.
Don’t confuse this with things you believe you “should” do. These are conscious, free-will choices you make, day to day.
You define the pattern of your day(s).
Ideally, these daily rhythms are also tied to a monthly, quarterly, or some sort of longer-term, larger “plan” you are working back from.
This is part of the roadmap that hasn’t been focused on much so far, so look for that to be built out a bit more in future articles.
Moment-to-Moment Choices
Small decisions that either reinforce or take you away from your values, quest(s), lifestyle design, and vision.
Your existential capacities come back in as very important, with a vengeance, at this micro level of your life.
Are you bringing enough of your existential capacity for awareness into these moments?
Are you exercising your existential capacity of choice (free will) in these moments?
Is your existential mood (your evolutionary, biological, inherited, and hardwired temperament and outlook) overriding your awareness and ability to exercise free will?
Are you utilizing your existential capacity for imagination to find new possibilities and solutions?
Does your existential, ecologically grounded environment support or detract from your ability to exercise greater awareness, choice, mood modulation, and imaginative capacities?
That is, have you removed the unhelpful and unnecessary friction from your environment?
Have you Zeroscaped your life so that you can develop the freedom to live your truth more fully on a Highway to Yeah?
Well, that’s a roadmap that seems to be emerging in this series of articles, at least so far.
It’s not a linear framework, although it appears so here.
It is much more of a cyclical movement, from Your starting place, like a spiral upwards (or downwards if you’re off course).
This is because it is an iterative, test-and-learn process.
Obviously, if you’ve been following along, it’s a roadmap that I am still defining and working through myself.