You’re the Crazy One, Live Like It!

From an evolutionary perspective, you live in unprecedented times. You have more control over your life than any human generation that came before. Other animals have the ability to use tools, communicate, even create culture, but the combination of opposable thumbs, upright posture, a large brain, and countless other adaptations gave humans the ability to dream, plan, collaborate, and make dreams reality.

The human imagination gave us fire, the wheel, agriculture, cities, aqueducts, the printing press, vaccines, space travel, and quantum computing. It also gave us X/Twitter, Chizza (“cheet-za,” KFC’s fried chicken pizza), and OxyContin, but no one said the human endeavor was perfect.

The human brain’s ability for abstract thought — thinking about things that don’t exist — and then the ability to make those ideas reality is truly remarkable.

Therein lies your problem.

Your body and brain are designed for scarcity. Humans evolved in an environment over which we had little control and fewer choices. We ate what we could find, went hungry often, and migrated to find more food or died. In rare moments of abundance, we gorged ourselves, and our bodies adapted to pack extra energy away as fat, which was quickly tapped as scarcity returned. Over millions of years, our minds and bodies slowly optimized to operate and thrive in this environment defined by scarcity and struggle.

Then 70,000 years ago, the human brain grew and evolved to the one in your head now and humans started asking the questions, “Why,” and “What if…” Our culture today is the result of a long chain of why and what-if statements that led our ancestors to test and learn new ways to reduce scarcity, survive, and thrive. What if we harnessed this fire? What if we planted these seeds here and watered them? What if we put a person on the moon, or Mars? What if we used fried chicken as the crust for pizza?

We ask ourselves why and what if multiple times a day, so often they are almost automatic. And our brains make up answers we consider, reject, or act upon. Humans have been doing this for 70,000 years and transformed life as nomads on the plains of East Africa, into the sedentary, fast-food culture we live in today. Humans have been so successful that we now have a body built for scarcity that lives in an abundant world. This is a cultural mismatch.

That’s kinda crazy! We are the victims of our own success. But as Richard Dreyfus narrated in Apple’s famous Think Different ad, it’s the crazy ones that, “change things… they push the human race forward.”

Here’s the little secret no one told you — that’s you! You are one of the crazy ones! All humans are. We all ask why, what if we all dream of ideas, we all plan, and create every day. Some take bolder swings than others. Some stick with their crazy ideas long enough for them to be normal things. We all have the crazy in us, it’s what makes you human.

So let’s get fucking crazy and apply human’s most unique ability to your health and ask “What if I took control of my health?” More specifically, “What if I designed a lifestyle that aligned with how my human body evolved to thrive?”

Yes, this means you can’t mindlessly do what our current culture nudges you to do. Culture is so powerful because it is designed for you to go into autopilot and drift with the flow. But the flow isn’t designed to make or keep you healthy.

So you need to use your crazy human genius to design a lifestyle that protects you from our culture and improves your health. Yes, the naysayers are right, no other generation has done or needed to do this. Humans have always just eaten what was available, moved when they needed to and rested/slept when they were tired. That’s because they lived in an environment and culture that was congruous with our biology (culture match).

The first Homo sapiens ate whatever they could find and had to move a lot (by today’s standards) to find it. Then humans invented agriculture and worked hard to till the land and harvest the crops. While the Industrial Revolution brought labor-saving machines, factory work was grueling. Even our grandparents lived through food rationing during the Great Depression and World War II. Our generation — GenX — has the dubious honor of being the first generation where food became ubiquitous and movement became optional.

That is why you’re fucked. Thankfully, you can get unfucked by doing something humans do best — change things!

So let’s start designing your life. Like all great design, it starts with core principles.

1. Have a purpose, set milestones— a purpose is the central reason why you exist. It’s why you are on this earth. Everything you do is in service of your purpose. Milestones tell you where you are relative to your purpose. A wonderful purpose is your family and friends, but get more specific, especially with your milestones. My purpose is to live a healthy, active life into my 90s so I can fully enjoy my time with loved ones. My milestones are to do the 5-day trek in Bhutan I did at 30 with my sons when they are 30 - I will be 70. That will require a high level of muscle mass to do the climbs and a V02Max that can tolerate the altitude. Share your purpose and milestones in the comments.
2. Simplify what you want; complicate what you don’t — making a conscious, rational decision takes a lot of energy, literally. The brain burns more glucose during conscious, rational thought. So you need to reduce the effort for things you rationally want to do but may not always want to do in the moment (exercise) and build up barriers to the things you rationally don’t want to do but are subconsciously driven to do (eat calorie-dense food). So make working out really easy and don’t keep cookies in the house.
3. Stage your environment — the spaces you live, work, and play in are critical. This is the physical manifestation of #2. Design your environment — home, work, and movement zones — so it is easy to do what you want and hard to do what you don’t want. For example, I do not have any sweets in my house — no cookies, ice cream, candy, etc. because if I do. I may have the willpower to resist for a few days but eventually, I have a day where I can’t resist and eat all the calorie-dense food in the house in one sitting. At work, I keep a workout pad for crunches at lunch and I’ve mapped 15-minute walks for non-critical calls. Share your environment design tricks in the comments.
4. Be Consistent — it’s better to be consistent than to be inconsistently intense. With your workouts, doing a zone 2 workout every day is much better than an intense week of lifting weights and HIIT workouts that leave you so physically and mentally exhausted that you skip the next week. Same with food — highly restrictive diets you can’t keep up do more harm than good. Do what you will do and over time you will find you will do better and better things. As you get started, keep streaks going. Don’t skip 2 workouts in a row, even if it means just doing a set of pushups — that counts!
5. Be grateful — gratitude is the secret weapon. Being aware that we are all part of something bigger — our families, communities, etc. — than ourselves and being thankful for what we have, no matter how small, is a superpower that puts everything into perspective and gives you motivation. While it’s not fair, we all have challenges and trauma in our lives and gratitude allows us to see those traumas as lessons to learn from. Being grateful gives us the motivation to pursue our purpose.

What designing your life comes down to is creating the environment and building the habits you need to resist the parts of our culture that lead to an unhealthy life and provide the structure and path to a healthier, happier life.

Good luck and share your design successes and failures in the comments.

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