How much of tomorrow do you want to spend today?

Switching from mortgaging your future to creating better harvests

The waves are rolling in just in time for the holidays at Deveraux Point, California. Photo: Per Håkansson.

Happy Holidays!

First I’d like to thank everyone that has been reading and supporting Fewer Better Things this year – without you this journey wouldn’t be possible. It has allowed me to focus on researching, exploring, and writing about this subject in a way I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

And I’d also like to welcome all the new subscribers that have come aboard over the past few months. There is clearly a big need for simplifying life and focusing on the fewer better things that really matters during our short stay on this planet.

If you know someone that would benefit from a year with Fewer Better Things, you can gift them a gift subscription for the holidays. Just click the button below.

Thank you!

Per

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Every time we drink alcohol, skip the workout, don’t do the work, or buy things on credit, we are borrowing from tomorrow to consume today. And the question we all need to ask ourselves is: how much of tomorrow do we want to use today?

Our current global growth-oriented system is dependent on this but that doesn’t mean that we have to comply. We can create our own individual lifestyles instead of trying to fit into one of the buckets that the world has designed for us.

Invest in today, harvest tomorrow

I think a better model is to invest in today to harvest tomorrow and every day after that. It’s to do the right things, which aren’t always the easy or comfortable things, to experience a better tomorrow for ourselves and our planet.

During the past two decades my focus has been to develop a practical philosophy for individual freedom without hurting people or planet. I call this philosophy Fewer Better Things and it has become my inner compass and true north.

I think you need two things to make this kind of adventure possible: a strong sense of agency and a deep sense of purpose.

Agency is about making yourself responsible and accountable for everything that happens in your life, even though it’s not your fault.

Purpose is what you breathe into what you do to create meaning in life. It’s what gets you out of bed in the morning and helps you stay up late at night.

If you have agency and you have purpose, you have everything you need in life.

But that’s not the story we’re told when we’re younger. The story we’re told is that we need to comply, fit in, do what everyone else is doing, follow the unwritten rules, march to the same tunes, and think the same thoughts – be “normal”.

This is because society needs to create stability and safety. Society needs to protect the status quo.

Everything is temporary

But the world is evolutionary, it’s always changing. The human story is not about stability and safety, it’s about constant change and exploration. Everything is temporary.

And to change the world for the better we need to figure out how to do things differently. To save people and planet we need to think differently about what it means to live a life well lived.

The challenge is, like the biologist Edward O. Wilson so eloquently puts it:

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

To make change in that kind of reality might seem overwhelming but if we break it down into smaller steps that we can start taking individually, it suddenly becomes much more achievable.

Liberating the future

Start with thinking about how you can bring good things from today into tomorrow, the opposite of borrowing from tomorrow for today. Instead of mortgaging the future you are liberating it by taking small actions every day.

For example: My daily swim practice which began in July this year is paying dividends every day now. It’s hard work, often uncomfortable work, but it’s fueling my mind and body for many years to come.

It gives me peace of mind, it strengthens heart and lungs, helps manage my ADHD, fuels my thinking, offers a space for solitude and reflection, creates new relationships, improves sleep and demands better nutrition and hydration.

What I’m doing is investing two hours* of my daily time, attention, and energy plus a very small amount of money in expanding both my health and life span, and decreasing the odds of having to rely on expensive medicine in the future.

*) The average time spent on social media daily is 2 hours and 23 minutes.

It’s the daily practice

The goal, that little dot on the horizon, is just there for me to stay on course. The important things is the daily practice and how it gradually makes me better, teaches me new things, and opens up to new unknown opportunities.

Writing everyday is just like swimming: practice will make you better in so many different ways, often unknown. From learning the technical craft to how you think better, speak clearer, and communicate wiser with the world.

And by sharing this practical philosophy I hope to inspire, fuel new conversations, challenge, question, innovate, and facilitate positive change.

Cleaned out everything

One of the best things I have done in my life is to get rid of almost everything I owned to not have anything to hide behind. That forced me to really get to know myself and learn what I really need in this life to live my truth.

I learned that I only need gear to do the activities I love the most, from writing and making photos to practicing ocean and mountain sports. Instead of postponing all that for retirement, I wanted it to be my daily lifestyle.

And this lifestyle, carved out on the invisible border between nature and society, doesn’t allow borrowing from tomorrow to consume today because then you’re locked in with fewer options, and less time, attention, and creative energy.

Today I’m very hesitant in buying anything, part from nutritious food, because what I don’t frequently use will take a big chunk out of tomorrow today and I’m not prepared to make that sacrifice for some false external validation.

So here are a few thoughts on how to make this journey: