Living Intentionally Through Design
We are going deep to understand what it is to live intentionally, why it matters, why it’s hard to do, and what it has to do with design? Stay with me a while.
WHAT IT IS
Living intentionally means you make decisions and act according to your individual core values, passions and best interests. It is the expression of your individuality, which is uniquely yours and yours only. Because it is far easier to simply watch how others are living and emulate it, the practice of living intentionally calls your will to be awakened. It requires that we take a pause and turn our perspective inward to become conscious of our ‘self’, to become self-conscious. This is an ability that we uniquely possess as humans: To take our ‘self’ in as observation. When we do this, we have an opportunity to decide if we like what we see, and if the answer is no we have the ability to change. Living intentionally creates an inner compass that has a knowing of where you are going and alerts you when you have gotten lost or off course.
Those who live with intention are not asleep at the wheel; they are the master of the helm. These are individuals who have dared to live the life they wanted and not the life they were told to live. They are the ones who don’t have an ‘un-lived life’ tucked away for some time in the future which never comes.
WHY IT MATTERS
Most obviously, we all want to live fulfilling lives and we cannot live fulfilling lives without discovering what one looks like. Living intentionally is the shovel that unearths the treasures that fulfill us. And, while it is critical for personal fulfillment, living intentionally is actually the best thing we can do for others. Being dedicated to a life that is aligned with your core values and passions will deliver the best version of you. As a result, you will be a better citizen, friend, sibling, parent, partner, boss, etc. Just imagine a world where each person is working towards or enjoying a fulfilled life?
Because it’s an opportunity we shouldn’t waste. There were times in our history, the majority in fact, that we didn't have choices; in some places people still don’t. Primitive man and agrarian societies were consumed by surviving, and lived their lives according to the roles they were assigned by their communities. They had little opportunity to self reflect and self direct their lives. It is a modern day luxury to author our own lives; to be the decider of the roles we play; and to be freed of imminent threats to our survival. Understandably, this freedom can often be felt as a burden. We have shifted to an age where we have great power to determine our destinies and as the saying astutely describes, with great power comes great responsibility. Though it may be hard, I don’t think there is anything more devastating than realizing you have wasted the opportunity of being you.
Because as humans, we are social animals whose very existence is dependent on others. Basically we need each other to show up and do our best because we are all connected. From primitive to contemporary times, being a member of a group meant survival. Think about the cup of coffee you may have had this morning – how many hands did it pass from before it got to you? Our most basic needs (I guess coffee is one of mine), are met by many others whom in many cases we don’t even know. Even now, our existence and survival are dependent on others. But, and this is a huge one, though it is our nature to belong to a group, it is important to remain an individual. We assume our best positions in the group when we claim our individuality, because it is through our individuality that we can make the most meaningful contributions. When we each make meaningful contributions we have a society that is set up for success.
WHY IT’S SO HARD TO DO
There are many many and more many things that get in the way of living intentionally. Part of it is social and part of it can be linked to our biology, but both happen simultaneously making it an easy cycle to get trapped in. I’d wager that experts across a variety of fields could theorize even more valid reasons why this task is such a challenge.
Biologically, our nature is at odds with our fast evolving culture and technological advancements. As humans, our main evolutionary advantage, many have argued, is our adaptability. Though we have many hard drivers that affect how we respond to the world, namely our genetics, we are left with huge freedoms on how to behave. This is not true of other living things. Most living things are more ‘hardwired’ and behaviors, by way of instincts and genetics, get passed down from one generation to the next with little change. If you know the mama fish, you will know almost all there is to know of the baby fish. Humans on the other hand, can lose entire ways of being in one generation, if the previous has not passed down what it knows. This openness has allowed us to be highly adaptable and very successful as a species. Therefore, much of what would have been transmitted genetically has been offloaded to culture. How is this at all related to living intentionally? Surprisingly a lot!
Prevailing culture is what typically fills in these blanks on how to behave. We look to our culture to learn how to behave and how to structure our lives. Mainstream culture used to be our small yet very relevant tribe or village, but now with the internet, social media, and a 24 hour news cycle, it’s the planet! Being able to see how everyone else is ‘doing it’ becomes less relevant and helpful to us as individuals when we step this far out of our radius. Doing this, is like going to Vegas; you hope you might win, but the odds are stacked against you. Even when you are up, if you stay long enough, you will be left with nothing.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION
Though we have a high degree of adaptability, we are in a stage of human development where we must question and question deeply what we adapt towards. We must also be mindful of what information is entering our consciousness via social media and marketing, both of which can distract us from living an authentic life. Living intentionally is our internal fact checker against this planetary culture we now live in. It allows us to question if ‘how everyone else is doing it’ actually matters compared to how I should be doing it.
Socially, things may be even more complex, but what is clear is that we are more distracted than ever, have antiquated ideas of success, and fear change.
HOW TO LIVE INTENTIONALLY
Living intentionally requires our awareness and attention, but we suffer from chronic distraction. Just think about how many times a day you get distracted during a task by a notification on your phone, text message or email. With modern technology we have the ability to be ‘always on’. Most of the technology we have is designed to keep us on the phone for as long as possible, with apps that have no end. It’s easy to scroll through hours of your day if you’re not careful. The idea here is not that technology is bad, but that it has damaging effects if we are not fully in charge of how we use it. It’s incredibly easy to allow technology to use us. We can see examples of this all over – texting while driving, concerts where all you see are screens watching, people walking behind their lit up screens with empty facial expressions, dinner tables where everyone is on their phone, etc. This is a real problem because the distraction (often welcomed as a hit of dopamine) creates little space for the self reflection that is needed to live intentionally. We are easily filling up every nook and cranny of our day leaving no space to view our lives, to practice being conscious of our self. In this case, our compass is not calibrated, and we can easily get off track, lost without even realizing it.
Additionally, there was a time, not too long ago that our workday ended as soon as we left the office. With laptops, software, and email we can easily take our work with us anywhere. These are great advances in technology, but socially we are struggling. Our workday now starts as soon as we open our eyes, grab our phone and check our email. There is no ‘end of the day’ anymore. In some industries this technology matches a top down expectation that you are to be ‘on’ any day and any time. This culture, unfortunately, is not so great for living and not so great when you desire a fulfilling and full life with varied life experiences. In the 5 regrets of the dying, written by Bronnie Ware, one of the biggest regrets was “I wish I hadn't worked so hard”. These are messages we should not ignore, top down and bottom up. Of course hard work is honorable, especially when you are working towards your individual purpose, but we need limits. Most people are stressed, drained, and of course busy, busy, busy – merely surviving between tasks. But we were supposed to have moved away from this cycle of surviving, right? Oddly, we have created our own survival game, but this time it’s not the tiger we must fear, it’s the modern world, available to us right in our pocket. We are just as much in uncharted territory as Columbus was when he discovered the new world. And things are just getting interesting, with the dawn of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, we again are on the precipice of creating technologies that will likely have the same unforeseen effects that social media and the smartphone did. Perhaps we can view social media and the smartphone as a sort of test, to measure how we fare when technology becomes deeply engrained into our culture? We can definitely be doing better, and living intentionally is our best aid. We find ourselves pioneers yet again and it’s now that we must reclaim our position as master of the helm.
WHAT IS SUCCESS?
The majority of the population wants a more meaningful definition of success, but falsely believe they are the minority, thereby furthering our distraction from what we should be doing. “An overwhelming majority of Americans now define a successful life as following their unique interests and talents to become the best they can be at what they care about most. Americans are hungry for a world that understands and values them. A world that is built to nurture and unleash their unique talents.” If this is true, as the research suggests, we are in a cycle that needs breaking. The majority of us want a new definition of success, yet we think we are alone and often succumb to the peer pressure to act like everyone else. As Todd Rose, Harvard Professor, Author and founder of Populace, points out, we need a cultural change to support this. We need a culture that says out loud and in practice that we won’t sacrifice our individuality and purpose to bend towards an idea of success that isn’t relevant anymore. This change is going to be driven by those who live intentionally. It is going to be these individuals’ collective example that will displace the antiquated cultural meme, that success is founded on fame, wealth, and power. We simply want more and we each deserve it.
CREATING NEW HABITS
We fear change. As creatures of habit, we often have difficulty incorporating new changes into our routines, no matter how beneficial they are for us, because we tend to do the things that make us feel good, secure and comfortable. For some, the mere mention of the word change can spark anxiety. However, change can be viewed as the currency of living intentionally, as change is yet another word for transform, and when we live intentionally, we are transforming ourselves as we work towards our best self. It’s a bit of a contradiction; as humans our best asset is our adaptability; yet, as humans we have a very difficult time changing? If we are so adept at adapting than why would change be hard? The take away is that yes, making changes is hard, but it is absolutely possible and worthwhile when we use our adaptability to serve our best interests.
We have two parts of our brain that are at odds here. The neocortex which is responsible for conscious decision making versus the basil ganglia in the primitive brain which is responsible for our habits. The more we do things, the more our brains get wired to continue with this behavior. Neural pathways are formed and in a sense we can go on autopilot. This is extremely beneficial as we could not function well if we had to use our conscious mind to move through each part of our day. When I see a red light, I don’t have to think about what to do, I simple know I need to stop. When we make changes we are going against the neural pathways that have become automatic. This disturbs the homeostasis that our body is always regulating to maintain – a constant state of equilibrium. So inertia, is more comfortable to both our bodies and our brains. However, our brain is not able to distinguish from a good habit or a bad habit. Understanding this, can be helpful in knowing what you are up against, and that you will need to stick with your new behavior for a while before it too becomes a way of your being. The great news is that if we can get over the start up costs of change, this change will become our autopilot, that is until we need to change again and change is the one constant in life. Get used to it and get good at it, and you will relieve tons of suffering.
We also have a tendency, an unconscious one, that the longer we have been doing something, the better it is. In other words, we equate longevity with goodness. While this can in certain circumstances apply, it certainly is not the rule. This can keep us stuck in old patterns and ways of doing things because to change would be an admission (in our minds) that what we were doing previously was wrong and no one enjoys being wrong. Consider if you’d rather be right, yet unhappy with your ways, or wrong but happy you could correct your behavior and improve yourself. Consider this especially in a reality where none of us will ever be error proof, but we all want to be happy.
Finally, changing habits can challenge your social circle. As group / social animals our belonging to a group is critical, and change can often put our place within the group in jeopardy. We hold a certain position within the context of the group, and when we change, we shift the landscape for each member. This can be a difficult transition for all and in some cases you may realize you don’t identify with your group at all anymore; thereby causing you even more change, both of which challenge your security and level of comfort. This task may be one of the most difficult, but the company we keep has a huge impact on our behavior, so whether it means we find new circles (more supportive of who we are today), or healthy boundaries within existing circles, it is nonetheless imperative to take stock.
APPLYING LIVING INTENTIONAL TO DESIGN
What does this have to do with Interior Design? Great question!
This answer may be the simplest of all. We spend over 90% of our time indoors, whether it’s your home or your workplace. This makes the built environment the most important design we interact with. When you begin to understand how much your environment impacts your health, wellbeing and mood, you quickly realize how much attention and intention the design of space commands. The interior environment has often been overlooked as a driver of wel-being and merely seen as an aesthetic discipline, but research has confirmed just how much our built environment impacts our mental and physical wellbeing. This is why organizations like Apple, Google and Facebook make billion; yes, you read that correctly, billion dollar investments in the design of their corporate campuses. They know and obviously value just how powerful the design of their buildings is to having employees who are happy, healthy, creative and productive. I bring this example to illustrate just how powerful interior design is as a tool , as it is often those with the deepest pockets that are first to understand and put these concepts into practice.
We are all, in fact, impacted by the spaces we interact with, from the color on the walls, the quality of the lighting, the furnishings, connections to nature, etc., each element of a space tells us how to feel. With this understanding, Interior Design becomes a tool to manifest the environment you want to act upon you, and act upon you it will, even for those who don’t consciously realize it. When we bring a lack of intention to our space, it is no different than living without intention. Even further, if we are to capitalize on living intentionally we must approach our interior spaces with as much intention as the rest of our lives.
