Life is one long trade-off — sacrifice one thing to get another. Almost every route to happiness we pursue today suffers from this problem, especially the good old degree-money-marriage-kids lifestyle recipe.

But no-compromise lifestyle designs do exist. Granted, establishing them is not easy, but once they’re up and running, they provide a reliable stream of happiness without any costly trade-offs.

This article presents the four that added the most value to my life.

1. True Creative Freedom

My #1 lifestyle design strategy is to earn the right to make your living doing something you’d happily do for free. I’ve been enjoying this privileged lifestyle for about two years now, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

It’s easy to see why this lifestyle is so desirable. After all, the status quo is suffering through a soul-killing 9–5 job to earn enough money to make the suffering worthwhile. Considering how much of our lives we spend working and how hard it is to buy happiness, it’s no wonder we want change.

Unsurprisingly, the internet is full of advice on how to achieve this dream lifestyle. But there are some serious problems with the two most popular pathways: FIRE and side-hustling.

Playing with FIRE

My creative freedom was forged in FIRE, even though I only found out it was a thing shortly before I earned the right to retire at age 34.

But let’s get real: Building wealth equal to 25x your annual living expenses by your mid-30s simply isn’t feasible for most people (especially not the spartan, research-obsessed route I followed). Still, the minority who manage to pull it off is very vocal about the benefits, causing considerable distress among all those who cannot access this privilege.

All too often, this leads people to dive head-first into the problems with the second popular pathway to freedom.

Hustling ourselves to death

Like FIRE, the internet houses a vocal minority of highly successful side-hustlers — the silliest of which are those hustlers who make money from videos/blogs showing the world how to make money side-hustling.

As a result of these vocal outliers, side-hustling is now a classic get-rich-quick scheme. It sucks many people in, only to spit most of them out dejected, burnt out, and bitterly disappointed.

Indeed, hustling to get rich is a terrible idea. It gets the priorities all wrong.

Freedom in Transition (FiT)

My FIRE strategy was stupid. The critical element I neglected was the part of my job I really enjoyed and wanted to continue doing. The salary I still get from this continued partial employment means that I need much less investment income to sustain my lifestyle.

If I could get a do-over, I’d start ramping down my level of formal employment after as little as three years of work. By that point, I already had a clear idea of my likes and dislikes in the job and sufficient reputation to negotiate a small reduction in official working hours.

Simply put, FiT is about gradually replacing the most hateful elements of your job with more of the parts you enjoy most. When negotiating this with your boss, offer to take a pay cut for this privilege. After all, when your job is fun, you’ll suddenly need much less money for buying happiness.

Start small and prove how effective you can be when you get greater freedom to work on things you enjoy. Then, gradually leverage this evidence to shape your responsibilities even more to your liking. A few years later, you’ll find yourself in your dream job that pays enough for a good life (and gives ever-increasing leverage to turn your visions into reality).

2. Healthy Pleasure

Most pleasure today is a straight trade of our time, money, and health for a series of carefully engineered dopamine hits. The Instant Pleasure Industry has figured out how to make these toxic treats so addictive that we keep overconsuming despite the serious long-term damages.

Luckily, life offers several healthy pleasures that involve no compromises. Here are seven of them. In today’s post, I’d like to focus on two in particular.

A zero-compromise diet

The modern world really struggles with food. Courtesy of the Instant Pleasure Industry, we’re constantly surrounded by hyper-palatable empty calories. And these sugary, fatty, and salty addictions are creating massive costs for individuals and society alike.

A zero-compromise diet offers a beautiful solution. It assembles a set of eating habits that combine great taste, excellent nutrition, high practicality, and decent affordability.

Just like the FiT strategy discussed earlier, a zero-compromise diet must be built gradually. Each meal will require several iterations before it fits your life just right. So, keep experimenting with ways to enjoy more whole foods. You’ll be amazed at how much your diet can change in a year.

If you’re worried about missing out on the pleasure from junk food, let me put your mind at ease. Once you heal your brain’s broken reward system, a wide range of whole foods will suddenly become deeply enjoyable. Add mindful eating to the mix, and you’ll get more than enough pleasure from your healthy food.

Restful time in nature

Nature has a mysteriously soothing effect on the human spirit. Aside from making us considerably happier, it offers at least three more proven benefits:

1. Fitness. Whether you’re walking, running, cycling, skiing, or rowing through nature, your body will love you for it.
2. Creative insights. The human mind seems to get considerably more creative after some exposure to nature.
3. Stress reduction. Nature is a great therapist.

Sadly, regularly getting into nature is difficult for many people. Despite some promising signs of change, most of our cities remain sterile blocks of concrete built for cars instead of humans. Still, even if this is your reality today, it’s worth making the effort to get your recommended 2-hour weekly dose of nature.

And when it becomes time to move house again, grab this chance to make nature your next-door neighbor. Choosing a location for effortless car-free living with nature in my backyard remains the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

3. A Few Quality Relationships

I’m one of those weirdos who can go for weeks without human contact. Case in point, the Covid-lockdowns were such a positive experience for me that I actually feel a little guilty. But even this research-obsessed scientist must admit that a few quality relationships with quality people enrich life.

On the flip side, low-quality relationships make life a whole lot worse—ditto for an excessive number of mediocre relationships.

So, how do we know where to draw the line? Well, in the context of this article, that’s straightforward: You draw the line at the point where your relationships become a clear trade-off between pros and cons.

Of course, any relationship involves some give and take. I certainly don’t mean to say you should try and find a relationship where you never need to give. No, the quality relationships I refer to here are those where you genuinely enjoy giving (and receiving, of course).

How many do we need?

Relationships of such quality don’t grow on trees, but the good news is that we only need a small number of them to be happy. That number will vary from person to person, but 3–5 looks like a good general guideline.

The key to getting the considerable health and happiness benefits from relationships is to feel good about where things currently stand. On the one hand, loneliness can be as dangerous as smoking. On the other, having to invest too much time and energy in too many relationships makes it impossible to look after yourself properly.

Listen to your heart. Let it guide you to that perfect balance where your relationships energize both yourself and the other party. This is the sweet spot where relationships provide true zero-compromise happiness.

Whether you’re currently above or below this sweet spot, be sure to approach it slowly. Building a close relationship can take a year or two. Stepping back from excessive relationships can be even trickier. Either way, patience is as much a virtue in this arena as in any other.

4. Unconditional Contribution to Society

We evolved to experience good vibes when we contribute meaningfully to the tribe. Without this instinct and the community it builds, our species would have perished millennia ago.

Today, the world is our tribe. And (to put it mildly) there’s plenty of room for contribution. Many see all the world’s problems as a source of despair. But to those who open their hearts and minds, tackling the world’s problems can bring tremendous purpose and fulfillment.

I know of no more fulfilling feeling than a deep conviction that my life is making the world a better place. To make it even better, this path to happiness connects beautifully with the three prior lifestyle design strategies.

Let’s take a closer look at these synergies.

A sustainable life

My personal development writing is based on the idea that a sustainable life can be a happy, healthy, wealthy, and productive life. Most people still see sustainable living as a painful compromise we need to make to save the planet, but nothing could be further from the truth:

• Sustainable habits like a predominantly plant-based diet and walking or cycling instead of driving greatly improve health.
• A clean divorce from environmentally destructive consumerism is the genesis of financial freedom.
• The sense of purpose that arises from making the world a better place skyrockets productivity.
• Happiness naturally flows from a healthy, wealthy, and productive life smartly designed to preserve our planet for future generations.

Earning true creative freedom, discovering healthy pleasure, and building a few quality relationships all contribute to a sustainable life. They effectively dematerialize our pursuit of happiness, freeing us from the hedonic treadmill (a.k.a. the consumerist hamster wheel to nowhere). From here, we can really go places.

The privilege of genuine contribution

I only get paid for about a third of my work, with the rest being free-time research into our great 21st-century sustainability challenge. “Why would anyone work thousands of hours for free?” you might ask. Well, as much as I’d like to say it’s because I’m such a good person, the main reason is that it fills my life with a tremendous sense of purpose and meaning.

Sadly, earning this privilege of serving society with no expectation of reward is surprisingly hard. In fact, our economy seems to try its level best to prevent people from selflessly contributing to the world. Many well-paying jobs today create little or no (or even negative) social value. And yet, we persist in these “bullshit jobs” (short version) because we need the money to make our meaningless work seem worthwhile. This vicious cycle only creates more environmentally destructive, bullshit work for others.

I really hope this changes one day. But in the meantime, earning true creative freedom in point #1 above is your ticket to the bottomless source of socially beneficial happiness flowing from unconditional contribution. It’s not easy, but it’s so worth the effort.

Wrapping Up

Lasting happiness cannot be bought. It’s not some conditional reward we get in return for our suffering. Although society doesn’t make it easy, happiness can be ours without any of the costly trade-offs we’re used to.

1. Win true creative freedom. Give up some salary for the right to trade your most hateful tasks for more of the work you love. Then, leverage the resulting increased performance for more creative freedom until you earn a good living from work you’d happily do for free.
2. Discover healthy pleasure. Ditch the Instant Pleasure Industry and all its toxic temptations. Life offers many better alternatives, starting with a zero-compromise diet and revitalizing time in nature.
3. Maintain a few quality relationships. Meaningful connection is vital to our health and happiness, but relationships can easily become riddled with compromise. So, use this as a guide, focusing on those precious few relationships that don’t feel like a continuous trade-off.
4. Contribute unconditionally to society. There are few better feelings than the knowledge that your life is making the world a better place. Discover the amazing benefits of sustainable living and earn the privilege of contributing to society without any need for reward.

Each of these steps takes time. But that only makes it more rewarding when you finally arrive. Enjoy the journey! There’s much to look forward to.