How I left the rat-race and unlocked life on EASY MODE (low-maintenance living)

About 10 years ago I sold my luxury sports car, and by choice I've been car-less ever since.

You might be wondering why I’d do something like this. After all, in most parts of the United States, not owning a car as an adult is seen as a sign of not having your priorities in order. But I didn’t care about any of that because in the year or so leading up to this decision to go car-free, I had been thinking a lot about how I seemed to always be busy or needing to take care of something, or needing to pay for something.

I felt like my life never allowed me to just chill out and focus being present.

It drove me crazy. The endless stream of obligation after obligation that had me questioning my life trajectory. Despite having the good job, having then nice car, and appearing to be successful by society’s standards, I started to feel like all of these things introduce more mental chaos into my life than any benefit I got out of them.

A car is one of the most expensive and high maintenance things that we own, so I wondered if life would become less stressful if I just got rid of the car altogether.

I decided to do a test run by trying to live without my car for a period of time and see how things go. I stopped driving. I started walking to most places. Then I spent about $300 on a bike to commute to and from work.

Firstly I got to know the world in a way that I never had in the past. I had been living in my neighborhood for years before this, but now since I was walking through it I noticed the smell of the flowers, or the birds chirping, or the details of the architecture. If you don’t know, New Orleans has some of the most beautiful architecture in the U.S., and it’s a shame that in all these years I’ve never truly gotten to appreciate all of the beauty that surrounded me.

Secondly, thing that happened, was that my life slowed down. Walking and biking places naturally took longer.  So I began to learn what it means to be patient, and to not force things to play out any faster than they are supposed to happen.

Third, my stress levels plummeted. I think part of it had to do with the fact that aside from walking and biking more, I was otherwise sedentary at this point in my life, so the act of moving my body produced endorphins and such that improved my psychological health. Being outdoors more and feeling more connected with my physical environment probably played in role in that too.

However one other thing that I think trumped those other reasons was that I didn’t have to worry about going to the gas station, or rotating my tires, or figuring out if my check engine light was real or a false alarm, or trying to find parking, or the million other things that naturally come with owning a car.

When I realized this, I was all but convinced that I should just continue my life in this way because the minor inconvenience of needing to be more cognizant of my time paled in comparison to the overall lifestyle benefit that I got from no longer stressing out about these things.

But the straw that broke the camels back for me was when I tallied up all my expenses for driving this car around. 

I realized that with all things considered I was easily spending over $10k per year on something that was causing my life to be more stressful. So it was a no-brainer decision for me to just get rid of it, and simplify my life, and that’s exactly what I did in 2016.

Since then, I’ve never followed the price of gasoline, I couldn’t tell you how much a gallon costs today. I haven’t set foot in a DMV for years now. I haven’t worried about parking, or insurance, or a fuel pump going out on me while driving down the highway. I have really gotten used to not having these concerns take up any of my mental space or financial capacity.

I will admit though, that every now and then I contemplate buying a vehicle. Then I think about how much more complicated I’ll make my life and I kill the idea pretty quickly because I like to live a “low maintenance lifestyle.”

(side note: if I did buy one I’d go with a Jeep Wrangler or a Ford Bronco…. you can tell me which one is better because I don’t know).

I tapped into CerebriX to help me explain the concept of low maintenance living in a couple of sentences and here’s what it says:

Low-maintenance living (n.): A lifestyle of intentional simplicity that minimizes effort, cost, and complexity in daily life while maximizing freedom, health, and fulfillment.

The result of low-maintenance living is fewer distractions, thus allowing for a slower, more grounded, and peaceful life that is aligned with your vision.

It’s not about being lazy or not taking care of your responsibilities. Rather it’s about eliminating misaligned responsibilities that distract you from being present and getting the most out of life.

My car analogy is just one of many examples of low maintenance living. I’m not saying that you should also get rid of your car because it's totally dependent on  your lifestyle. But I’ve carried this idea over into so many other areas of my life and you can as well.

I have managed to reduce all of my material possessions down to whatever can fit into a single moving box so I spend virtually no time worrying about maintaining the things I own. When I move I put everything into my one box, and I go to wherever I need to go.

Outside of investment properties which are essentially businesses, I don’t own a primary residence, and I rent a furnished apartment instead so I don’t worry about all the concerns that come with home ownership.

I lowered my living expenses by leaving the U.S. and moving to Portugal, so I’m not forced to work 50-hour weeks at some corporate job to finance my lifestyle. I can pick and choose if and when I work because my lifestyle doesn’t require me to maintain a 9-5 that demands virtually all of my time and energy.

So, what I am saying is that you can apply this car analogy to so many other aspects of life.

If you feel like life is too overwhelming… like the bills keep coming, or your job constantly demands more from you than you’re able to give, or like you’re just exhausted from your day-to-day life  then you can do as I did and lower your maintenance requirement for life.

You can start living a low maintenance lifestyle.

Your only obligation in life is to go from womb to tomb. To be born and to die. Everything else in between is basically optional.

Beyond the bare necessities for sustaining and enjoying life, most elements of the modern world give the illusion of advancement while actually adding more stress and anxiety to life.

Christopher Ryan (no relation) talks about this extensively in his book Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress.

“Most of the stress and anxiety that people feel today is man-made, a product of social rules and cultural systems that never existed for most of human history.”

“We spend our lives pursuing things that don’t actually improve our quality of life, while ignoring the simple pleasures that have sustained humans for millennia.”  

So, you can choose to construct your lifestyle around principles of low maintenance living, but to do so you need to challenge the core tenants of society.  I can talk extensively about this forever but I’ll try to break it down for you so it’s easy to understand.

The first principle of the low maintenance lifestyle is to focus only on the essential…

There’s a book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, and the book talks about the need to forget about everything that is not absolutely essential to your desired lifestyle, and to only focus your energy on what IS essential.

“When we are unclear about our real purpose in life… we overvalue nonessentials like a nicer car or house… As a result, we neglect activities that are truly essential, like spending time with our loved ones, or nurturing our spirit, or taking care of our health.”

Before you do anything you need to know your purpose in life. If you already know it for sure then good. But if you don’t know it then I’ve provided a free prompt that you can use with ChatGPT or with CerebriX to walk you through a process of discovering your purpose and vision for life.

Once you have that clarity for yourself, you can begin to design your lifestyle accordingly. That means taking an inventory of your daily actions, your spending habits, your relationships, assessing whether they are aligned with your purpose and your vision for life, and making a clear distinction as to whether they are essential or non-essential.

For the non-essential things, either eliminate them altogether or deprioritize them so you make room to focus on the essential.

In my case I decided that my car, most of the things that I owned, and the financial or mental expenses associated with them were not essential, therefore I got rid of them and it started me on the path to living the lifestyle that I live now.

The second principle of low maintenance living is to embrace minimalism and slow living…

One of the great tragedies of western civilization is that capitalism, and marketing, and society at large all push the narrative that your life is inadequate without all of the modern conveniences that they are selling you.

But it’s this mindless consumption of these conveniences that are contributing to lots of the problems that we’re having now.

Consumer debt is a major problem for people now because it’s keeping people trapped in financial slavery. Social media and unlimited access to entertainment is causing dopamine overload and its impacting our ability to stay focused or even find pleasure in things that we once enjoyed. Technology is causing us to use our brains and bodies less leading to declining physical and cognitive abilities.

People develop attachments and form whole identities around their material possessions and the symbols of status that they’ve acquired over the years.

Thoreau put it beautifully when he said:

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

So the low maintenance lifestyle requires that you reject the normal view of consumerism and accumulation of modern conveniences, because it turns out that many of these things actually translate in one way or another to poor health, more stress and anxiety, financial insecurity, lack of identity, and so much more.

You’ve already determined what is essential and what is not, and so minimalism is simply the practice of building a lifestyle around the essential while discarding the non-essential.

Minimalism also plays into the concept of slow living. Since you’re not caught up in the consumption of non-essentials that take up your valuable time and mental space, you now have time to slow down and be more present with life. John Comer talks about this at length in his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry:

“The solution to an over-busy life is not more time. It’s to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.”

You now have time to sit in silence and reflect on your life. You have time to read a book, or to wake up and pour a cup of coffee and be present with yourself.. You have time to sit and enjoy a meal with friends with no time constraints. You have time to focus on "being."

Slow living must become an integral part of your life and not just a thing that you do. The easiest way to introduce slow living into your life is by creating rituals for yourself. They could be daily rituals, or weekly, or even monthly, but whatever you do make sure that you give yourself an abundance of time to flow with the pace of nature.

I’m not an advocate of smoking, but I have a couple of friends who enjoy cigars, and they use that time of smoking a cigar to slow down and just be present with themselves.

Going on walks is another very big one. If you live in a city it’s especially beneficial to find either a park or a walking path that’s embedded in a more natural environment so you can get away from the noise pollution and distractions of the city, and you can get some fresh air in the process. When you do this you slow yourself down to the pace of nature. You’re literally embracing the natural flow of life.

There are a million other ways that you can slow your life down. It’s up to you to assess your own life and determine how you want to do that, but a pro tip is to look back to your purpose, and your life vision, and that’ll give you a lot of direction when it comes to figuring out the best way for you to slow down and be more present.

And over time, you want to introduce more and more slow living rituals into your life so that eventually your life reaches a critical mass where majority of your time is spent free of stress, it’s free of anxiety, it’s free of unnecessary hurry.

The third principle of low maintenance living is making health a priority so you spend less time, less money, less energy at the doctor, or filling prescriptions, or dealing with insurance…

I don’t know about you but I think that anything involving the medical and healthcare industry is extremely stressful.  Life is infinitely better when you can stay out of the doctor’s office and have minimal health issues to deal with.

“When the body is strong and the mind clear, the path of life becomes lighter.”

I remember one time I had a problem with mold in my apartment, but I didn’t know it was present at the time. So I had all kinds of mysterious and very debilitating health problems that came from out of nowhere. I went to the doctor multiple times and even ended up in the ER a couple of times. And the whole time the doctors had no clue what was going on. So I spent about 6 months running in circles, being gaslit by doctors who have no concept of how to treat or even detect toxic mold exposure, and if I had followed their advice to take all kinds of medications that never solved the root of the problem then I’m not sure I would even be here today.

I get it, there are times when you really need medical help. But from my own experience, and from the horror stories that so many other people have, when you have an issue that pulls you into the medical system, it’s often a one-way ticket to a lifetime of treatments, and side effects, and treatments to the side effects, and so forth.

I’m not convinced that western medicine appreciates holistic approaches to health, and instead they have a way of treating health where it’s like they have a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Sometimes that works, but often times it leads down a path of more problems that drastically diminish your quality of life.

So the goal is to live in a way that keeps your need for interacting with the medical system to an absolute minimum.

This also applies to mental health, and cognitive health and any other variant of health that you can think of. A low maintenance lifestyle means you’re removing from your life anything that disrupts your ability to be sound in mind and in body.

The last but equally as important principle for living a low maintenance lifestyle is working to live instead of living to work…

I don’t know how we got to this place where in the U.S. people’s entire existence seems to revolve around their jobs.

“We have become a civilization based on work—not even ‘productive work’ but work as an end and meaning in itself.” – David Graeber

“A population busy working… doesn’t have time to do much else.” – David Graeber

I can understand if you really love your work, but that’s a small minority of people. Most people either tolerate or flat out hate their jobs, and they’re only doing it as a means for generating income.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

But what’s crazy is centering your life around something that you hate and is completely misaligned with your ideal vision for your life.

I can’t tell you the amount of people I’ve talked to who are absolutely burnt out, and depressed, and suffering from terrible anxiety because of their jobs, yet they insist on serving on different committees at work, and jockeying for promotions that’ll entrench them even deeper into the system.

This is why you’ve already gone through the exercise of figuring our your vision for life, and focusing only on the essential, and introducing minimalist and slow living practices into your life. Because when you do all of these things, you dramatically lower your cost of living . Thus, your need to put in countless hours at work is also reduced and you free up time to find balance in your life.

A quick reminder, if you need help setting your life vision, then I created a free A.I. prompt that'll help you do so, because it's extremely important that you know this much about yourself.

So if work is a huge pain point and source of dissatisfaction in your life, then you have the option of working less.  But our default programming leads us to constantly pursue more, more achievement, more salary, more job status even when these things are non-essential for your life.

If you want to successfully implement the low maintenance lifestyle and enjoy more peace, more freedom to do what you want with your time, and fewer elements of stress and anxiety, then you absolutely need to shift into the mindset of working as a means for living and nothing more.

If your current job is affecting your ability to enjoy life, and it makes more than enough to sustain your lifestyle, particularly after you’ve embraced the concepts of essentialism, and minimalism, and slow living, then there is absolutely no reason why you should be trying to climb up that ladder.  You should be trying to go down the ladder instead.

So long as your income is sufficient, you should be cashing in and buying back your time instead of running up the score when it comes to career advancement.

This is probably the most difficult of all the principles because it’s so deeply ingrained in us to do the opposite, but if you mange to make the perspective switch then you really, REALLY, will start to understand what it means to live a low maintenance lifestyle.

A life with fewer work calls, fewer time sheets, fewer performance reviews, fewer days rushing into the office because you’re late, less navigating messy office politics… if you ask me all of these are a much better life than being shackled by the golden handcuffs because I’m incapable of drawing the line and saying enough is enough.

I would say that I am currently living a low maintenance lifestyle.

As I’ve alluded to before, I have far fewer bills and expenses than your average person. I spend my days living slowly, getting fresh air and sunlight, practicing wellness, taking care of my mind and body, doing things that I find enjoyable.  I have more time to enjoy human connection without rushing.

I’d say it’s an overall better life for sure, and I want you to be able to enjoy this lifestyle in your own way as well.  That’s why I’m creating The Escape Algorithm which is an invite-only community and program with the specific goal of helping high achieving corporate professionals navigate through the stress and the burnout that comes with the golden handcuffs. It’s for people who are “suffering from success” as DJ Khaled would say, because that success is misaligned with the real measures of a fulfilling life.  So check it out and complete an application if you’re interested in a taking a methodical and algorithmic approach to building a better life for yourself.

If you’re not ready for that then I do have plenty of other free and paid resources at TheFocusAlgorithm.com, including the Self-Reinvention Cheat Code which is a field manual that’ll help you get started in your low maintenance lifestyle journey, as well as the CerebriX accelerator which is the A.I. tool that I use to work through my own challenges and put me on the right path.