Beyond Rules

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Dedicated to Cristina - and to all those who, silently and lovingly, live beyond rules.
Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 2
WHO WANTS A WORLD IN WHICH THE GUARANTEE THAT WE SHALL NOT DIE OF STARVATION ENTAILS THE RISK OF DYING OF BOREDOM? RAOUL VANEIGEM
ONE: Introducing Rules ....................................................................9

//!....The Age of Anything Goes! .................................................................................................................10 //!....Beyond Rules!....................................................................................................................................12 //!....Lifestyles versus Rules! ......................................................................................................................14 //!....The Go Beyond Rules Flow Map! ....................................................................................................15
TWO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still Learn Something) .............17

//!....The Buddha Incident!.........................................................................................................................17 //!....My Story in 200 Words!......................................................................................................................19 //!....How to Learn Stuff! .............................................................................................................................20 //!....Gentle Little Huge Steps!...................................................................................................................22
THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete) Bestiary ....................24

//!....Entangled Dependencies!..................................................................................................................27 //!....The System to End All Systems?!......................................................................................................28 //!....Personal Sovereignty 101: Your Own Philosophy of Life!..................................................................30 //!....One Rule to Rule Them All: Friendliness (and a Voluntary Contradiction)! ........................................32
Fun Fact: FOUR: Space Travel .........................................................................35 This book is //!....The Riddle!.........................................................................................................................................35 shorter than it looks. //!....Drop-Outs and Opt-Outs!...................................................................................................................36 Ask your trusted //!....Treating the Symptoms versus Going to the Core!............................................................................37 designer about the magic of whitespace.
//!....In Defense of Inefciency! ..................................................................................................................40 //!....The Portal!..........................................................................................................................................42 //!....Your Trip to Space!.............................................................................................................................44
FIVE: Your Space Beyond Rules ......................................................49

//!....Values, Not Rules! ..............................................................................................................................50 //!....Needs and Wants! ..............................................................................................................................53 //!....Dene Your Own Success!.................................................................................................................56 //!....The Power of Internal Goal-Setting! ...................................................................................................59 //!....Now, Dance! .......................................................................................................................................61
SIX: Unmethodology .......................................................................63

//!....Experiment as Method!......................................................................................................................63 //!....Trial and Error! ....................................................................................................................................66 //!....Deliberately Dilettante!.......................................................................................................................68 //!....Dont Go for Rewards! ........................................................................................................................70
SEVEN: Deciding to Change .............................................................73

//!....A Decisive Decision!...........................................................................................................................75 //!....How to Decide!...................................................................................................................................76 //!....Decision as Process!..........................................................................................................................78
EIGHT: Productivity Beyond Rules .................................................80

//!....The Compass!....................................................................................................................................80 //!....The Trick to Getting Things Done!.....................................................................................................82 //!....A Conspiracy for Change!..................................................................................................................85 //!....Imperfectionism!.................................................................................................................................88 //!....Stay With Difcult!..............................................................................................................................89 //!....Escape from Coffee-shop Nation!......................................................................................................90 //!....Shipping!............................................................................................................................................91
NINE: Live Your Own Adventure .....................................................93

//!....The Delusion of Awesomeness!.........................................................................................................93 //!....What Are the Odds?!..........................................................................................................................95 //!....You Are Not Alone: An Invitation to Stay Beyond Rules!....................................................................99 //!....Its Up To You! ...................................................................................................................................101
Appendix .......................................................................................102
//!....Acknowledgements!.........................................................................................................................102 //!....P.S.!..................................................................................................................................................105 //!....P.P.S.!...............................................................................................................................................106
RULE a regulation or principle governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere. 1. a law or principle that operates within a particular sphere of knowledge, describing or prescribing what is possible or allowable. 2.control of or domination over an area or people. 3. the normal or customary state of things. GOING BEYOND RULES 1. getting conscious about the principles governing our conduct in order to transcend them. 2. eliminating undesired control and domination, and replacing them with personal sovereignty and self-government. 3. embracing uncommon ways of living an interesting life.
You need to get a job. You need to take your anti-depressants. You need to have six-figure income. You need to marry a beautiful spouse. You need to perform flawlessly. You need to look like the TV starlets. You need to drive a bigger car than your neighbor. You need to be fit as a fiddle. You need to create a revolutionary movement. You need to see a doctor. You need to become way more productive. You need to buy an iPhone. You need to eat your greens. You need to dominate others. You need to fit in.
Alternatively, you need to go beyond rules.
ONE: Introducing Rules

We fetishize rules. Rules give us order and clear instructions. Rules show us what is possible and what is not. Rules maintain things in an orderly state that we know, and that makes us feel comfortable. Rule-breakers can be sanctioned easily. Rules are a question of comfort, they are part of our customs, and they are also quite useful in many instances. On the downside, rules constrict us and strip us of responsibility - to a degree that can be unfulfilling at best, dangerous at worst: Following the rules can mean pretty much anything from being an exemplary employee, to suffering under boring office procedures, to reaching the the extremes of creating mass murderers like Adolf Eichmann. Once established, rules are easy to apply in everyday life. They create a
black-and-white world that encourages to pass over a deeper analysis of any concrete situation. This is only possible at the cost of a simplification of reallife situations that are in fact often too complex to be standardized. Although it can be a helpful basis for decision-making at times, a formal rule system will never be able to honestly represent the complexity of real life, no matter how big and complex it becomes itself. Also, as reality permanently changes, any established rule system becomes obsolete pretty fast, and thus it has to be updated constantly. Summing up, rules often deliver less than optimal results. But as they are part of our normality, all we do is perpetuate them: We accept the rules of the game, or we trick them. We refine them, or we replace them. We corrupt them, or we improve them. We just never go beyond them.
//! The Age of Anything Goes

Living by the rules isnt a huge problem as long as life and the world itself move at an orderly pace. As long as the world at large acts according to a rule system everybody knows about and everybody adheres to, a life based on it can be quite comfortable, even though it might be unfulfilling for some.
The problem is that we arent living in an Age of Rules anymore. We are living in an Age of Anything Goes: Whatever can be done will be done. The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you, Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman writes in The World is Flat. On a business level, many people are getting conscious about this: Companies have to develop better solutions for new problems, or the competition will do it. But the same is true on a personal level: If we dont pursue our own ways actively, we will have to suffer passively. If we dont question the rules we live by, we will live by the rules of others, or by rulesets that are outdated and obsolete. By adhering to these old rules, then, we will behave like ice-hockey players looking for the puck, when the rest of the world just went figureskating. We could, of course, adapt to the changes in the world by merely inventing new rules - but who says that they will serve us any better than the old ones? We might be faster in adapting than bureaucratic institutions, but in the end, we might end up stressed and would still be too slow for the world. The lesson? In the Age of Anything Goes, rules become obstacles. The alternative? We opt out from the old rules, and create something better.
//! Beyond Rules

Of course its great when red light means stop, and green light means go. Everybody knows it, and it makes everybodys lives somewhat easier. There are some rules that make sense, and thats nothing I want to dispute here. On the other hand, were probably all guilty of having crossed a red light late at night, when we were hoofing it and it was raining and it was cold and there was a three-headed monster chasing us and no policeman was looking and absolutely no car was approaching nowhere. Its this kind of rule-breaking that works great for everybody (except for threeheaded monsters). Unfortunately, we often dont notice the rain and the cold and the tiredness, while waiting for the red lights in our life to turn green. Whenever that happens, we arent able to break the rules, because we are not aware that there are any rules that could be broken in the first place. The real problem here is not any specific rule at all, but our unconsciousness. Consequently, going beyond rules means first of all becoming aware of the rules we live by, analyze them, and then, where necessary, eliminate or transcend them. This will allow us to (re)create a life thats more in agreement with our personal flow.
By advocating a life beyond rules, I am not advocating a world of brutal disorder where only the strongest survive. (This is probably pure selfishness, because Im a lover, not a fighter. But Im also a fighter, so don't get any ideas!) My intention is to invite you to question those rules that do limit and harm you, in order to transcend them, and go beyond what you considered possible and allowable until now. My intention is to remind you that nobody forces us to live a life based on other peoples preferences, under other peoples control or domination, and that we are free to live under personal sovereignty and self-government. My intention is to pause for a moment, and remember that we only have one life, and suggest that living it beyond the normal and customary state of things could be more interesting and fulfilling than you might have thought. Going beyond rules is first of all an exercise in consciousness: If were not aware of our choices, how can we choose? Once we are conscious, not choosing (or choosing something ridiculous) is a whole different problem - but it comes after solving the first one!
//! Lifestyles versus Rules

How do we win in life? There must be a script! This is a question that will probably tear us apart. My answer is: I think we dont. And: There isnt any script. Life isnt won by the first person to hit the graveyard. Its not won by the person that takes more money, fame and gadgets into the tomb. Its not won by the textbook lifehacker who wont rest until hes dead. As far as I can tell, life isnt to be won; its to be lived. And its not a race, sorry. As long as there are no three-headed monsters behind us, we dont have to run. Mind you, making loads of money, seeking fame, buying gadgets and being a textbook lifehacker can all be part of a happy existence. I dont believe they are particularly important, nor particularly interesting, but who am I to judge? If thats what you want - and its all you want -, please go ahead. But if you find yourself in a rut, and if you think your community, your country, or maybe even the world at large is in some kind of a rut, too, then I invite you to leave your old rulesets behind for a moment, and stop looking for a script.
Theres the law and theres whats right. Im gonna do whats right, Sartana says in the movie Machete. In our context: There are rules and theres whats right. We should do whats right, too! How do we know whats right? As it turns out, doing whats right is not a question of creating rule systems that provide us with a clear script for every possible situation in our lives. I agree with many ancient thinkers - the Stoics, the Epicureans, Aristotle, and others - that living the good life is not so much about knowing which specific action to take in any specific moment. Its about choosing the right lifestyle, and being the right person. This will lead us to taking the right actions, without the need for a script.
//! The Go Beyond Rules Flow Map

Beyond Rules is escaping your personal three-headed monsters, even if the traffic lights are still red. Beyond Rules is having breakfast at 7pm. Beyond Rules is being smarter than your boss.
Beyond Rules is playing like a kid, no matter if youre 6 or 67. Beyond Rules is belly-laughing for 25 minutes straight, even though youre not drunk. But its also belly-laughing for 25 minutes straight when youre drunk. Beyond Rules is doing what works, without having a fail-proof script to follow. Your turn: Go wild, imagine, dream, brainstorm, and paint it in the most colorful weirdness: How will you go beyond rules? Feel free to share the results with me on Mails Beyond Rules! (More on that in the last chapter!) (There will be more of those red arrows coming up. They indicate an opportunity to let the text go for a while, and do something practical!)
TWO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still Learn Something)

BELIEVE NOTHING, NO MATTER WHERE YOU READ IT, OR WHO SAID IT - EVEN IF I HAVE SAID IT - UNLESS IT AGREES WITH YOUR OWN REASON AND YOUR OWN COMMON SENSE. BUDDHA
//! The Buddha Incident

Always include Buddha, he told me, speaking German with a heavy accent. Always include Buddha, always include Oscar Wilde. Wilde and Buddha, man. Wilde and Buddha. They will give you instant credibility. I was having a couple of beers with a French scholar, and he was briefing me on how to write my first bestseller, even though he knew I wasnt going to sell it in the first place. Thoreau is an option, he continued, as he exhaled the heavy smoke from his filterless cigarette, but Buddha - Buddha is a must. Wilde is optional, too, but it shows that youre not a lame-ass.
I wasnt sure if he was kidding. Of course, I didnt want to be a lame-ass. But I really didnt want to be all that clich, either. (Did you notice, though, how Buddhas wisdom instantly seems to rub off on me just by using a quote from him?) When thinking about it, many people seem indeed to be quite happy to study interesting quote collections, without ever making something of the wisdom they consume. Here is a sad truth: Studying fancy Buddha quotes wont take you anywhere. Reading this book wont take you anywhere. And much less will I. You will. This is good news for the both of us (and for Buddha), because it leaves you at the steering wheel of your life, and its much less work for me. (Its also much more work for you, but I wont be so stupid to write that here or you will leave and check Youtube right away, only to never come back. Instant gratification FTW!)
The secret to believing nothing and still learning something is to walk with open eyes and an open mind, and to take nothing for granted just because an authority - a book, a person, a smirking internet marketer - says it. So why should you read this book?
//! My Story in 200 Words

Before we get going, you might be asking: What the heck, this book has got like a hundred pages! Why on Earth should I read it? It looks like waaaay TLTR. And who is that fellow writing this stuff anyway? As far as credentials go, Im just a guy. More precisely, Im a 29 year old European with hobo blood running through my veins, spending my time as a traveling writer, thinker, artist, activist and idler. Ive got a college degree in Latin American Studies, and specialized a bit in philosophy, myth and the (classical) liberal arts. After college, I could have pursued a normal career by applying for a normal job, but I dislike two things: Stress and boredom. Unfortunately, both of them are common consequences of getting a normal job and pursuing a normal career.
I got clear about the stress issue when finding myself in a hospital after surgery due to a stress-related illness. I got clear about the boredom issue when talking to my colleagues in the offices of a big supranational organization in Bogot, Colombia. I ultimately decided to opt out and create an alternative when traveling upstream the Amazon, observing the monkeys chasing each other in the trees. My goal was to embrace a slower, more mindful, and more interesting lifestyle, and I started writing about it on The Friendly Anarchist. You can find more information about me here.
//! How to Learn Stuff

As it turns out, life is not (just) about credibility and credentials. As much as I trust certified pilots and well-trained surgeons, I have met many wise people who have taught me two big lessons when it comes to learning: Everybody can be your teacher. You have to draw your own conclusions.
Everybody can be your teacher, is a classical saying, and it is true - as long as we are good students. The things I learned in my life were taught to me by very different people: Some of them were professors with multiple PhDs, others were drop-outs and bums that decided to live and die at a beach. My teachers were men and women, children and retirees, conservatives and liberals, straights and queers, atheists and preachers, Colombians and French and Germans and Brazilians and US Americans and Catalans - to make it short, people from all over the world. Some lessons I learned on my own, by just observing my surroundings; some lessons I learned through books and ancient philosophers; some by employing trial and error. Teachers and teachings are all around us, but we have to be willing to learn. You have to draw your own conclusions: The flip side of teachers and teachings being all around us is that it can get pretty overwhelming. All kinds of people and information compete for our attention, and sometimes its hard to choose to whom we should listen, and whom we should ignore. If we try to listen to everything, we wont be able to make any sense of it. If we dont listen to anything, we will miss out.
The solution I personally found to be working best is to be open to input from many sides, but avoid being manipulated. Its where the Buddha quote becomes important: We may listen to anybody and anything, but we always have to draw our own conclusions. No matter how authoritative someone acts, its up to us to test if what we are told holds up to our standards. This is the best spirit to get the most out of this book.
//! Gentle Little Huge Steps

In this book, we will fight toxic dependencies, develop a friendly anarchistic mindset, travel to space, eat hazelnut ice-cream, opt out from systems (or even the system - up to you!), work with our values and goals, find new definitions for success, and a whole lot of other things. We already hugged the Buddha, and were just getting started! Depending on how motivated and energetic you are at this very moment, all of this may seem a bit overwhelming. No need for despair, though: Its right that in order to go beyond rules, there are some huge steps to take. The good thing is that even huge steps can be taken gently, so I would like to invite you to work with this book at your own pace.
Feel free to have a break whenever you feel like it, and come back later. Also, if my internal editor made me write things that dont make sense to you, you can always reach me by mail: fabian@friendlyanarchist.com To think about: Who are your most uncommon teachers? Why do you trust them? And whats the one thing even the most stupid person in your surroundings can teach you?
THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete) Bestiary

Rules come in many styles and flavors, they hide in many linings and disguises, behind various masks and makeups. Often, they wear the latest fashion. Sometimes, they just wear the emperors new clothes. And still, they keep being the same old limiting rules that we would like to identify, analyze and if we deem it best get rid off. Here are some of them: Routines: These are the rules no aggrieved party ever agreed on, and that still make our days as it turns out, generally not to the best avail. The System: The biggest rule of all and still so elusive. Shes easy to blame because she cant defend herself; yet its not very helpful to chase her, because shes harder to catch than the Himalayan Yeti. Systems: Not to be confused with their megalomaniac great grandmother, these bad boys are often well-groomed, despite their excessive use of pomade. They can be helpful, but they are also quite unsympathetic, because they force us to cut ourselves into pieces only to fit their mold.
To Do Lists: These are the Chihuahua equivalent of rules. They bark, they yelp, they yap around and if they can, they bite our calves. Thankfully, they are easy to get rid off, because even if we dont manage to get all the things on them done, we can still tick them off when nobody is watching. Dependencies: These rules are often friendly, as they allow us to drink coffee without growing, roasting, or even preparing it on our own. They provide us with plenty of comfort and car repairs and ice-cream and entertainment. That often makes us forget their sucky side we get to experience when we dont know how to change that tire on the emergency lane during an autumn cloudburst. Sovereignty: Shes the beauty queen that never seems to get older, and everybody is dying to date her. Unfortunately, most people dont even get her to answer their phone calls, because shes way too smart and too selfdetermined to please everybody. Careerism: Together with his brother Consumerism, this girl is part of our DNA nowadays. Shes always well-dressed and impressively annoying, because all she can think about is how to please her bosses and brush up her CV.
Consumerism: This rule drives fast cars and always brags with the latest gadgets, spending the money of his sister. Together with her, hes said to be a direct descendant of The System, but apparently, nobody ever lives long enough to give a more detailed testimony. What-Will-The-Neighbors-Think: The trickiest rule of all, this guy is always good for a joke at our cost, killing every even remotely interesting or unconventional idea that comes to our mind. Even though he appears to be witty, Id recommend to stay away from him, because he smells just as funny as he looks. Of course, this list remains incomplete, and I would love you to continue it. Maybe, during the course of your life, you have met some other family members and friends from the Rule Clan. Just think about Regulation, Directive, Order, Act, Law, Statute, Edict, Canon, Mandate, Command, Dictate, Decree, Fiat, Injunction, Commandment, Stipulation, Requirement, Guideline, Direction, Formal Ordinance, Procedure, Practice, Protocol, Convention, Norm, Custom, Habit, Precept, Principle, Standard, Axiom, Control, Jurisdiction, Power, Dominion, Government, Administration, Leadership, Supremacy, Authority, and Co.!
We will look at three members of this particular clan in more detail now: Dependencies, Systems, and Sovereignty.
//! Entangled Dependencies

As modern human beings, we are entrenched in a confusing web of dependencies: We are dependent of a job to pay our bills, dependent of corporations to feed us, dependent of other people to accompany us, even dependent of entertainment systems and companies to keep us busy in our free time. If we look at it closely, pretty much any area of our lives is constricted by dependencies: Relationships, work, leisure, health, food, and even our very own minds and thoughts. As outlined in the bestiary, dependencies arent always negative or even illintended. But they often arent the best thing that could happen to us either: Dependencies like to dominate us, they want to be central to our lives. Thus, they convince us that we cannot live without them, even when this isnt the case. Accepting these entangled dependencies blindly means giving away control. When we do that, we behave like a foolish kid in front of the metaphorical red
light from our first chapter: We follow the rule and wait, while the threeheaded monster starts devouring our body, that is: our lifetime. The trick to coping with dependencies, as with all other rules as well, is to become aware of them, analyze them, and transcend them wherever we deem it necessary. In short, we have to be smarter than them, and being smarter starts with calling them out. Giving a name to our dependencies makes it easier to get a grip on them. Even though our superstitious self might fear that (calling something out might invoke it; just think of You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, The Dark Lord - Voldemort!), its incredibly helpful in practice: When we name them, the dependencies instantly lose much of their power, because they become easier to handle. Its like seeing the monster for the first time, giving us the ability to evaluate how dangerous it really is.
//! The System to End All Systems?

Even when we attempt to go beyond rules, we might really just be exchanging one ruleset for another: Once we arent buying into the tenure system anymore, we buy into the self-employment system. Once we get rid of the teen fashion system, we buy into the office look system. And so on.
Of course, nobody exists in a vacuum, so all of us are influenced by other people to some degree. Just as much as we all have certain dependencies, we all live within and use certain systems. One pretty popular system nowadays is the unconventional rock star life system. (Much of it could also be called shady-internet-marketers-way-to-rippeople-off system, but that probably wouldnt sell all that well.) The underlying problem is that we all love to buy prepackaged solutions, even if we believe to behave unconventionally. Prepackaged systems are comfortable, they are easy to get in exchange for money, and they are marketed in some form or another, so that they manipulate us into perceiving them as the solution we are looking for. The problem is that they dont work. The unconventional rock star life system creator wants you to buy into his system - maybe because he really cares for your progress and happiness, maybe because he just wants to make some money. Whatever the reason, he requires you to adjust yourself to fit into a mold he creates. If that doesnt work, it must be your fault - right?
As long as you believe that, you are a nice cash-cow for him, but you probably wont manage to create the changes in your life you would like to see. The solution to this does not come in form of any book or guru. If you really want to solve it, you have to become your own guru, and write your own book. This is a lot harder than just buying into a prepackaged solution, but the good thing about it is that it actually works. It will be a long walk - but maybe you can convince Ms. Sovereignty to accompany you on your trip!
//! Personal Sovereignty 101: Your Own Philosophy of Life

Being sovereign means having supreme, independent authority over a territory, and derives from the Latin superanus, meaning being above. Whos above you? Nowadays, we generally understand states as being sovereign, and there is much political debate and even wars waged if a nation state feels its sovereignty was violated. At the same time, our personal sovereignty is violated all the time, and we rarely do something about it. Yet if we want to take control of our lives and opt out from detrimental dependencies, we have to become personal sovereigns.
In his book, A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine makes a point in remembering us of the importance of having a philosophy of life that can be our guidance. While the primary goal of most ancient philosophers was to help ordinary people live better lives, nowadays, most philosophers just dont dedicate time to these matters anymore. The reason? According to Irvine, modern individuals rarely see the need to adopt a philosophy of life. They instead tend to spend their days working hard to be able to afford the latest consumer gadget, in the resolute belief that if only they buy enough stuff, they will have a life that is both meaningful and maximally fulfilling. (Un)surprisingly, this generally doesnt work all that well. This is one of the reasons we buy into self-help systems - which doesnt work either, as mentioned above. The single best countermeasure really is to create our own philosophy of life: In the words of Irvine, we have to find a grand goal in living, and then pursue the necessary strategies to attain it! This book is not written to teach you which philosophy to adapt. Instead, my goal is to provide an initial framework that helps you to create your own philosophy of life.
This philosophy will not be rule-based. Instead, it will help you to evaluate situations and decide depending on the current realities, without the need to standardize your life the way any fixed ruleset would require. Instead of prescribing solutions, my goal is to help you ask the right questions and find the answers that fit into your life. The goal of it all is to reach a state of personal sovereignty and consciousness - a position where you not only see the red light, but also are aware of the rule thats behind it. (And about the three-headed monster behind your back. I also want you to get to the point where your psychic skills will allow you to make the red light explode. And to transform the monster into a cute puppy. And to eat hazelnut ice cream for breakfast. Nah, sorry, I got carried away with that last one.)
//! One Rule to Rule Them All: Friendliness (and a Voluntary Contradiction)
The history books are full of bad people doing bad things. Nowadays, we hear about them in the news: Just think of the trouble caused by nameless dictators, election fraudsters, terrorists, and online marketers.
Dont let this confuse you: The majority of human beings is nice. Just as you are. Friendliness is a core value on this planet, even though media and insurance companies want to make you believe otherwise. We have to put the news into perspective: Even in many of the most dangerous places of the world, when you walk the streets, there are no snipers waiting to gun you down. There are no gangsters trying to stab you. In most places, there isnt even the petty thief trying to grab your purse. While all these people actually exist and do these kind of things, they are a very small minority. More than 99% of the people you see out there are more or less decent people, just like anywhere in the world. They wont be perfect. Some of them may be guilty of tax fraught or of cheating on their spouses. They may be lazy, they may be cranky, they may be gutless. But all in all, they are just people trying to organize their lives, trying to earn the money they need to take their family out for dinner. When it comes to how you fit into the picture, there are two sides to consider. I would propose to make them your golden rules beyond rules, because a little contradiction is part of the game:
As a consequence of humanitys overall kindness, you may calm down and relax. You can live your life, and generally, people wont mess with you. During the process of going beyond rules, you will treat with lots of other people. Why not treat them nicely? Happiness studies agree that doing good things to others is an essential part of our well-being. It triggers the same response in our brain as eating chocolate. What I would propose, thus, is to make friendliness one of your core values. (Well talk about values later in this book. We will also dance, so it wont be as boring as it sounds.) Evilness is over-perceived. Friendliness is all around you. Its just not on the news channels.
FOUR: Space Travel

//! The Riddle
At this point, some of you might actually agree with me that going beyond rules could be an interesting endeavor. I quoted Buddha, I offered ice cream, I mentioned three-headed monsters, and so I paid my dues. The problem now is that those of us who are not fine with living by old rules find us in front of a major riddle: How can we do better? How can we do better isnt an easy question. Simply asking it somehow seems to imply knowing more than millions of other people, who just accept things as they are. Quite an arrogant assumption, and an intimidating one: If we are only modestly modest, just pondering this assumption will be enough to make us shut up and go back to the place others had us assigned. Unfortunately, shutting up and going back to that place wont make things better. In order to solve the riddle, then, I would propose to first stop assuming that we might solve it at all. I propose to separate the rejection of the old from the creation of the new: First of all, we want to opt out from what we perceive as wrong. We opt out from a
system we consider obsolete, without opting in to a new one. In a next step, we will be free to try building something better - while still maintaining a certain humility. (Alternatively, we may become megalomaniacs and create a brand out of our delusion. This is what Mr Sheen seems to be doing quite effectively.)
//! Drop-Outs and Opt-Outs

For Timothy Leary, the drop-out from the system has to be invisible. Interestingly, this seems to be the standard even among non-psychedelic dropouts: They stop to care, they drop out, they get lost. They end up living with a big bushy beard and a bunch of hippie friends in a hut somewhere at a tropical beach, growing mangos and sugarcane and distilling their own rum, while the rest of the world carries on with their craziness. When someone decides to drop out, people will generally ignore him or decide to not take him seriously, in order to avoid questioning their own lives. While I am all into beards and rum and hippie friends, I also like cities and digital cameras and the internet and exchanging information with people that live on the other side of the planet. And maybe, so do you. I dont think thats all there is about life, but its a part of it. So what to do if the beach drop-out just doesnt fit all that well?
I propose to opt out, rather than to drop out. Its just a game in semantics, sure, but dropping out sounds passive and victimizing: You leave the world to other people and go hide in a cabin somewhere in the woods. Again, not that I was against cabins in the woods, but its not just since the Unabomber that we all know this isnt possibly the best thing we could do. The opt-out, in contrast, is active and self-determined: You see the offer, you notice it sucks, and you say No, thank you, walking away towards something better. If you just drop out, you get lost and nobody will ever notice. If you opt out, you can still do it maintaining a low profile - or you can cause a scene. I like the latter, because who knows: Maybe someone on your way will opt out with you?!
//! Treating the Symptoms versus Going to the Core

John Doe: Hey Jane, work sucks! Jane Doe: Shall we change it? John Doe: Of course not! We just need to become more productive and calm, while leaving the root cause intact.
Our productivity is a mess. Its one of the prime examples for more and bigger, instead of meaningful and better. For most people, Getting Things Done or whatever productivity system they buy into is good on a factual level, and theres no need to question it: If only they get more things done, they are content. Another example is the growing popularity of meditation. Its used by many people as just another tool to be calm and balanced. Even though I can welcome that to a certain point, my question is this: What is the point in meditating to be calm and balanced, if we leave the thing untouched that made us feel upset and unbalanced in the first place? Both meditation and GTD can be used as tools to achieve more results, but if those results dont help us advance towards where we want to go (because we are focusing on the wrong things), what are they good for? If the large context is a mess, details and better technique wont save the day. By meditating or setting up GTD systems we can become calmer or more productive, but the underlying problems persist. Its like treating a cancer with painkillers: We feel momentarily better, while it keeps metastasizing inside of us.
Here comes the tough question: Is there something that doesnt feel right in your life? Are you bored, unmotivated, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed or simply unhappy? If so, is it really because you want to be more productive and get more things done in your job to thrive? Is it because you want to leave the broader picture intact and only work on the details? Or is it because you are ignoring your cancer and treating it with painkillers, while its growing deep inside of you? What do you want to opt out from? Im not the one to answer. To be honest, I think we all could probably ignore these questions until we reach our midlife crisis. Wait until the kids are out of the house, and then start working on being ourselves. Or we could wait until we are lying on our deathbed, wondering if we lived up to our potential, wondering why we didnt do what we dreamt of doing. The ugly thing about life is that we only got one - and its pretty short. Productivity hacks and meditation alone might not be enough, if the root causes for our discomfort remain intact. If we want to act, we are free to act now. Because if we dont do it now, we might not get around doing it before our life ends. If we feel there is something going wrong, we can just start doing
something about it, even though it may not be a complete revolution: Tiny little huge steps, remember?
//! In Defense of Inefciency

We suffer, nowadays, from an obsession with efficiency. Time is gold, we believe, and so we have to make the highest use of it. We get used to this at school (45 minutes for the test!), and at work (I need these papers by 3pm sharp!). Its also a behavior encouraged non-stop in media (Stay up to date with our text message news flash!) and advertising (You are lazy? You are losing time? Theres a quick fix! Buy this habit-breaking ebook and become a professional time manager in 7 days!). In classical ruleset fashion, this obsession oversimplifies life and creates tremendous anxieties at the same time. As we are bombarded with the same notion again and again, we end up taking it for granted: We feel we have to use each minute of our time efficiently, and whatever we do, we have to overperform and deliver perfect results. This is another reason why we are trying to become more productive, a better lover, a faster reader, while leaving the underlying issues untouched. Doing this means taking clumsy and premature small steps, instead of taking
gentle little huge steps. It may be efficient for now, but it wont be effective in the long run. Living our life and practicing personal development then becomes all about metrics, statistics, comparisons and competition. Authors sell books on how to become super-human or live like a rock star, but they never manage to make a real contribution, because they only treat symptoms and leave the core untouched. This is understandable, because the core has to be worked by every single one of us - on our own. There are no quick fixes, no pre-packaged solutions, and thus, its a tough sell: Going beyond rules cant be done in 30 days or your money back, or with 99 simple techniques. There is no dummies guide for it. The fun thing is, that it isnt necessarily hard because of that. Everybody can do it, really. But what it takes is effort, time, and dedication - and theres no guarantee for success. In terms of cost-benefit analysis it can, at times, be quite an inefficient endeavor. Are there any good reasons for doing it, then? I believe so, yes. The best reason of all is that by entering this process, you will finally see the real reason why you want to be productive. You will feel how
being calmer and more focused can help you in your life - and not just in the most mundane tasks of it. By committing yourself to go beyond rules, you might enter into a deeper connection with yourself than ever before. This will be the first step to reclaim personal sovereignty: Understanding who you really are, identifying your wants and needs, and then taking the steps to fulfill them. Instead of muddling another year with becoming more productive without having any good reason for it, I invite you to ask the right questions, find your personal answers, and then pursue your own personal way beyond rules, even if it may be less efficient than the way of your neighbor.
//! The Portal

Ready to opt out? If you want to go beyond rules, you need to take a trip to space. You cannot stay where you are, because you need to detach yourself from what is around you, in order to get a birds-eye-view on your life. To make your trip easier, I recommend opening a portal: A portal is how you travel to space without building a rocket or taking LSD. (Although LSD might be a portal in itself. Feel free to follow your preference, but please dont harm yourself!)
Theres a fine but significant difference between inspirational fluff and a portal: The portal is made by you! A portal is the easiest, simplest and at the same time the most stunning and beautiful gateway to space. Its the words of a talented author, the lyrics of a familiar song or poem, a piece of visual art that was burned onto your retina, or even a human muse. Inspirational fluff makes you dream in the same way a McDonalds menu makes you filled up: You dont feel hungry anymore, but you feel by no means satisfied either. A portal, in contrast, makes you dream more vividly than ever before, and it fuels you to take the plunge and make a difference. A portal is personal, present, and perfect in its very own sense, as it makes you vibrate. When you read, see, hear, smell, or touch it, you arent able anymore to sit quietly, but feel the urgent need to stand up and move. To give you any idea, here are two portals of mine:
SEE ISTANBUL, PORT SAID, NAIROBI, BUDAPEST. WRITE A BOOK. SMOKE TOO MANY CIGARETTES. FALL OFF A CLIFF BUT GET CAUGHT IN A TREE HALFWAY DOWN. GET SHOT A FEW TIMES IN A DARK ALLEY ON A MOROCCAN MIDNIGHT. LOVE A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. RAY BRADBURY, DANDELION WINE SURELY THERE IS STILL SPACE FOR CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS, FURTIVE ENCOUNTERS, HIDDEN AGENDAS, UNDISCLOSED LOCATIONS, SECRET IDENTITIES, CLANDESTINE AFFAIRS, CABALISTIC RITUALS, INTRIGUE, AND ENIGMA. MICHAEL MAZZEO These portals might not touch you by any means, or they might touch you so deeply that they become your portals, too. Whatever happens, I am sure you have your own portals, and this is the moment to reconnect with them! (If you feel like it, it would be lovely if you could share them with me!)
//! Your Trip to Space

You have your portal, you packed your stuff, you went to the bathroom, and youre ready to go. Youre ready to travel up and away, leaving all the rules that bind you behind. Eventually, you might reach the time and space before there even was time and space but that would probably be too mind-boggling. So for now, just a quiet piece of space will do. In this space, there is nothing but you.
Now, how exactly do you travel to space? How do you opt out from your unwanted systems? How do you use your portal? Its simpler than you think - and harder: It really depends on you. Have you seen the movie Waking Life? Its about a guy who wanders around his dreams, and from one dream he enters another - but he never manages to really wake up; he never manages to get back to the real world. So he starts asking around, and hes talking to that other guy he meets in another dream: Im trapped. I keep thinking that Im waking up, but Im still in a dream. It seems like its going on forever, and I cant get out of it and I wanna wake up for real. How do you really wake up? And the guy answers: I dont know Im not really good at that anymore.
But em if thats what youre thinking, I mean, you probably should. I mean, you know, if you can wake up, you should. Because you know, some day, you know, you wont be able to! So just em But its easy, you know just, just wake up! And thats just how you opt out. Thats how you travel to space.
You are here.
This free space may look weird or intimidating at first. Dont worry, we will make it nice and livable right away! This free space is your mind after the optout. It's the canvas of your life. Its where you can begin to paint whatever youd like to see. But Im still right here! The old rules still hold me tight, you might say. I know. The difference between accepting the old rules you learned from your parents, in school, at your job, etc., and living beyond rules is twofold: One, its now up to you to create what you think is best: With great power there must also come - great responsibility! Two, your mind is empty and easily filled with all kinds of rules when you are young and helpless, while it is full right now, when you try to go beyond them. Dont worry about that for now, and just get comfortable in your mind-space. The confusion will go away in no time, as we replace the old rules with something better.
FIVE: Your Space Beyond Rules

Dollars, euros, yuans? Beyond rules, there are really only two currencies that matter: Time and Space. Time allows us to move beyond the pace that society, employers, or random other people try to impose upon us. Space is where we play. Its up to us to make something of it: Chaotic or orderly, spontaneous or planned into detail, colorful or monochrome: Its up to us! The more sovereign we are in our space, the smoother we are able to move. Both time and space are not part of a zero-sum game: We dont have to take them away from other people in order to get some more for us. Every single person on Earth has the same 24 hours a day to fill with work, fun, and whatever else shed like to do. Every single person on Earth has an endless space in her mind for thoughts, dreams, and ideas. The consequences of this are fun, because they allow us to be our own Federal Reserve Bank: We can print money in these currencies, just as we see fit.
If we want to create time, we start living in tempo giusto. Tempo giusto means the right pace, and its all about becoming sovereign users of our time. I wrote about this quite extensively in a (still unfinished) series on The Friendly Anarchist. In order to create space, there are two different possibilities: 1) We can transcend our own mental barriers. 2) We can create tangible life-spaces that are in agreement with our values and goals. Both points will be discussed at large in the upcoming chapters.
//! Values, Not Rules

So you are floating in space. Its amazingly dark darkness, and not much more. To be precise, absolutely nothing more. Very dark darkness, and thats it. What should you do? Where should you go? After mentally opting out, confusion seems to reign. Creating a new set of rules could solve this issue - but it would leave us where we were before: In a new system with all its inherent disadvantages. As already explained, the problem with rules is that they are static and restrictive. As we dont like to be
restricted, we search for ways around them - and we always find them. This is the magic magnetism of loopholes: Even if breaking the rules leads to punishment or complications, we will still find them, and we will still use them. Consequently, in society and in personal life, we have to set up more and more rules in order to fill those loopholes - only to discover some new ones afterwards. Values, in contrast, dont entail these problems. While there may be a huge discussion about which values are better between different people and groups, they are much more flexible, and they help to guide us in a way that rules never will. Values are permissive rather than restrictive. They are guiding principles that help in practical life, but they dont try to define every single situation that we might encounter. Thus, they do not standardize and constrain life, but amplify it. Whats more, as they are personal (at least in the context of this book!), there isnt any incentive to break them. We can and will, after all, adjust them as our life experience grows. (If you believe this is flakiness, I invite you over to chapter 7, in order to have a look at the section called Decision as Process. If thats not too flaky.)
Please notice, the question for values is not a why question. Nor is it an exercise to find out how to please other people. Nor is it a call for complete coherence and unambiguity. Nor is it a Hawaiian jet-ski adventure. (Sorry, erase that sentence, Im just being silly. Coherence and unambiguity!) You may care about faith, even though science is another important value for you. You may care about being free and adventurous, even though security and stability matter to you as well. You may care about chocolate ice-cream, even though youre on a diet. That's just like life is! Dont sweat too much about it: As you get clear about your values, you will find out a certain hierarchy, and you will also iron out the inconsistencies bit by bit, or learn how to live with them. (Gentle little huge steps, remember!) Your homework: Get conscious about the values that guide you, and put them into a certain order. Once you manage to do this, it will be much easier to make decisions on concrete issues, and you will be free to embrace them as part of your life flow rather than a chore. In practice, just sit down in a quiet room and make a list of all important values that come to your mind. There are different opinions on how many values we should have, but as this is about you and going beyond rules, we
will leave the shoulds aside. It will probably be easier to make it a somewhat manageable number in order to connect with these values during your daily life - 5 rather than 25 - but there are other ways to do this, too: Benjamin Franklin, for example, had a list of 13 values, and he practiced them by focusing on only one of them for a week each, following a strict sequence he then repeated again and again, in order to internalize them. If you are unsure which values matter to you the most, just compare one with another and decide which one is more important to you. Remember: No need to freak out, no need to please me, just go ahead and modify them later on, if necessary.
//! Needs and Wants

Even though Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Human Needs is a bit outdated, it still provides useful categories for our understanding of needs. According to Maslow, we can distinguish five of them: 1. Physiological needs: Hunger, thirst, sex and sleep. 2. Safety needs: Longing for routines and order (Hint: Thats why you want a job!), protection from harm and pain, avoidance of risk and unknown things.
3. Love needs: The affection of family and friendship. 4. Esteem needs: This concerns self-respect, sense of achievement, a feeling of freedom on the internal side, and the desire for status and recognition on the external side. 5. The need for self-actualization: A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization. Even in 1943, Maslow was clear about the fact that this hierarchy is not an absolute one: People might look for love and self-actualization even if they are hungry or hurt. (There are newer models taking this into account.) Still, Maslow can help us understand more about our anxieties and motivations: We all need air to breathe. We all need clean water to drink. We all need food. But what else? How do we personally relate to his model? To be able to lead a long and happy life, we surely need shelter. Or at least a hammock at a place with really good weather under coconut-free palm trees. (I suppose that coconuts regularly kill people. And if not, Im sure they hurt. Double check your palm tree!).
We also need relatively good health (or learn how to cope with our illnesses), and, as social animals, we probably need some nice people around us. We wouldnt want to end up like a wolf child. Then, of course, there are our personal wants. Id like to have a Leica M9 and a small house at the Danish West coast, thank you. And then, Id like one of those lear jets, since seeing the last James Bond movie. Its like 55 million dollars. Oh well. When it comes to the small extras in life - a Leica M9, a lear jet, - things get blurry pretty fast. We strive for so much, even though we could live with a lot less. The human body and the human mind are pretty tough bastards: There are people surviving without contact to other human beings. There are people sleeping without shelter on the streets. There are critically ill people surviving, even though their doctors declared them dead a long time ago. When I see how a surgeon takes out organs of a body like motor parts from a car, I find it incredible to believe that hes actually working with a living person here. And then, that person probably has good chances to survive, and live happily for many years to come.
Frankly speaking, how hard is it for most of us living in relatively safe and rich Western countries to die from hunger, murder, or health epidemics? I would say its comparatively hard. If we dont have to worry about these things anymore, and we separate our need for recognition from the superficial approval that is created through money and fame, we are free to move beyond these anxieties and focus on other areas. Its here where we can look for our personal definitions of success.
//! Dene Your Own Success

The rulebook definition of success still seems to be living in a mansion, driving a huge car, and always being able to buy the latest gadgets. If we look at Maslows findings, we have to question this definition - and start making our own. To be sure, if your definition of success were living in a mansion, driving a huge car, and always being able to buy the latest gadgets, I wouldnt really have a problem with that. (Well, I would probably think its a little stupid, but I suppose you would think the same about my definitions, so were even!) The real problem is that many of us get too easily distracted by shiny new things and professional marketing. As a consequence, we adapt definitions of
success that really dont matter all that much to us in the core, and often even stress us out. It might thus be a good idea to get clear about what success doesnt mean to us, and to get conscious about how we are being manipulated. Advertising and marketing are all around us. Even though we may despise that, its currently simply the way it is - and not all of the people responsible for it are necessarily evil. But its up to us to identify their tricks and methods, and develop a healthy resistance to it. Instead of becoming marketing gurus, we should become marketing-proof. (This would probably be an interesting topic for another book) Often, we tend to equalize success with obtaining a thing or a situation we strongly desire. But, as Eric Weiner points out in his book The Economy of Bliss, this connection doesnt really exist on a neurological level: We strive for a camera, or for a lear jet, but once we get it, we arent any happier than before. This is a consequence of our human programming: We attain what we wanted - but instead of feeling content, we just feel hollow pretty fast again. Traditionally, instead of drawing the consequences, and developing a different concept of success, we just replace our old desire with a new one - an even better camera, an even nicer jet, - and continue to long for stuff instead of finding happiness in the moment.
The lesson? Desire can motivate us to move, but fulfilling it doesnt necessarily lead to a deeper and lasting feeling of contentment. There isnt really any definition beyond our very own that matters, so spend some time thinking about it: What would the good life be for you, and how would you know you are living it? Remember, there are no rules in these exercises: Aristotle thought living the good life meant reaching eudaimonia (wellbeing; literally having a good guardian spirit - the fulfillment reached when having an objectively desirable life). Timothy Leary thought that it meant dropping out from society and taking LSD. Pretty weird already, but at least it sounds kind of interesting. And John Doe thinks it means getting an office job, and rising the corporate ladder in order to become Head of Finance? Im not here to judge, but maybe there is something more to life than that. If youre interested, my personal definitions of success are still evolving. I noticed I am feeling happiest when I am living and moving in a state of flow, as defined by Mihly Cskszentmihlyi: It means moving in a middle position between boredom and excessive demand, i.e. in a position where we are
working on something challenging, but not overwhelming. It was the desire to pursue flow that made me decide against the classical career path, as sketched out in the second chapter. The other central element for me are other people: Being with others, engaging with them, and making them happy gives joy to me, even though I am not a huge extrovert. Helping someone out, making a great gift, paying compliments, or walking with flowers simply makes me happy. Consequently, engaging with others is definitely an important part of what I see as a successful life.
//! The Power of Internal Goal-Setting

Goal-setting is freaking me out. I always wonder: How on Earth do these professional goal-setters know what they should aim for? And then, how do they reach it? The simple truth is, they often dont. Most peoples goals are like a bulls eye, but when they shoot for it, the arrow doesnt even hit the outer. Setting goals like this is approximately as effective as collecting stamps as a pyromaniac. (Burn, Blue Mauritius, burn!)
As I found out with time, the reason most peoples goals suck is because they are external, i.e. depending on factors that lie outside of themselves: Getting a specific number of blog subscribers or selling a certain number of books is something we can work towards, but its ultimately outside of our control if we really reach these goals by a certain date. Whenever other people are involved, we just cannot be sure if and when we attain them. Consequently, by choosing external goals, we lose sovereignty. In order to fix this, I would propose to experiment with setting internal goals, i.e. goals that are completely under our control. This isnt a new idea: Aristotle knew that the good life couldnt be reached by relying on external goals, and Stoic philosophers recommended to focus on internal goals in order to maintain tranquility in our lives. (Its funny how people have been talking about these things for more than 2000 years, and we still dont get it!) While we ultimately cannot control our subscribers and sales, we can control the effort we put in. Our internal goal, thus, should be to do the best we can, rather than focusing on an external outcome. The biggest objection to internal goal setting is that it isnt easily measurable. While I personally believe that it doesnt hurt to get away from our fixation
with numbers, this doesnt need to be the case, though. It is completely possible to set measurable milestones when creating goals, yet still maintaining complete control over them. For example, you could commit to writing for your blog during one hour each day. Or, if you are flexible with your time, you could commit to writing a thousand words. These are both easily measurable goals, but they are completely within your own control, opposed to goals of getting a certain amount of comments, retweets or new subscribers. The good thing about setting internal goals is that they lead to external results, but they do not make our happiness and tranquility dependent on them: If we do our best, chances are high that we will reach the number of subscribers we would like to get - but we wont become depressed or anxious if we dont. In this sense, internal goals really bring together the best from two worlds: Motivation and direction without the price of anxiety during the process or discontentment with the outcome.
//! Now, Dance

Talking all the time about values, success, and goals is great, but it makes me a little fuzzy in my head. Thinking about that stuff too much probably makes you fuzzy, too. It reminds me of a German party: Everybody is sitting in small
groups, drinking beer, discussing the world. As much as I like to do that: It gets fuzzy if you dont start telling jokes or hit the dance-floor from time to time. As most written jokes are boring, Id like to ask you for a little dance: Just put on your favorite music, and move a little. If you need a recommendation, Ive got one prepared for you: This should totally do it. Seriously, as I am writing this its 11pm on a hangover Sunday, but listening to this song just makes me dance, if I want it or not. From all the ladies, the one I kiss is music. (And if you are a headbanger rather than a dancer, try this! I swear Ill have you moving in no time!) Refreshed? Then back to business.
SIX: Unmethodology
We are still in space, and there are some amazing new stars around us already: Our values, goals, and definitions for success. They will be our guidance for the life we are about to create. If we do that by using the old methods, though, we would easily repeat doing the same old bullshit everybody else is doing - but we wont go beyond rules: If we had always followed the methods of others, we would still start a fire by hitting a couple of rocks together. Consequently, we want to ditch methods for a moment: Ditching methods means doing what works opposed to pursuing one single and fixed way of doing. For the moment, all we want to use is one big (anti-)method: Its called experimentation!
//! Experiment as Method

Human life itself is an experiment, and nobody really knows where its leading. (If you believe in a divine plan, you will disagree. But even if there is one: We humans probably dont know all that much about it, at least in the details.) Still, we are doing all we can to play it safe. This leads to boredom and
repetition, and its also what keeps us in our daily rut, even though we might not be entirely happy with it. The Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson proposes experiment as the ideal method for times of uncertainty: It seems to be productive to admit our personal insecurities, instead of merely continue to pursue the rationalized and standardized approaches. We have already seen that rules and standards are nice, but they dont always cut it. Think about the alternative: What if we embraced life as what it is? What if we admitted that we dont have all the answers, and opened up to learn something each and every day? What if we accepted that we do not have complete control the outcome of what we are doing (by setting internal goals!), and celebrated this very fact by adapting experimentation as our anti-method? By doing so, we can go beyond the rules we live by, even if we are unsure of what is next and how things might turn out: As we experiment consciously, we create a whole new reality itself. Asking questions and trying to live the answers rather than theoretically defining them - this is the best way to pursue a sovereign life, as it allows us to
(re)connect with our self, even though we may not yet be sure about what it actually is! In this context, remember gentle little huge steps once again. We often fall into the trap of wanting to turn our lives around in one single, majestic move: We want to become Super-Me! We want to eat healthier, start doing sports, make new friendships, build a business, and find the love of our lives, all in the course a week. As far as I can tell, the people pursuing these plans are guaranteed to fail, and they generally end up living in subterraneous labs trying to take over the world with a self-built yoghurt gun, until James Bond comes along to kick their ass. Gentle little huge steps are the promising alternative - and often way more fulfilling and fun. Fulfilling, because you actually might manage to get somewhere. Fun, because you may pursue stupid micro-experiments just to lighten up your day. (Heres one: Have a virtual feast with a friend who lives in the same city as you do. Cook greasy food, listen to your favorite music, get really drunk, all while being connected via Skype. The next day, meet face-to-face for a hangover breakfast at 6am, and discuss the experience. You get 2 bonus points if you really manage 6am; 5 more if you didnt sleep in the meantime!)
//! Trial and Error

Streamlined mediocrity still seems to beat the combination of stunning wins and the occasional flop. In school, job interviews and corporate structures, its still easy to muddle through as a faceless number. Just how long will it last? Truth is, if we close ourselves to the possibility of failure, we wont get the successes. Embracing experiment as method means embracing failure as much as it means embracing progress, embracing evolution, and embracing interestingness. Once we opt out, mediocrity isnt the way to go anymore. It means embracing failure as an opportunity to grow - but also as something that just happens from time to time. Its the latter that is still unpopular even among unconventional folks, but that doesnt make it less real! Sure, we can and should analyze our failures and learn something from them, in order do better next time. But lets be honest: Occasionally, we might fail and not learn a thing. Whatever we did just didnt work, and were taken by surprise, lying on the floor with our knees bleeding, rubbing our eyes, wondering what just happened.
The answer is simple: We failed, and it sucked, and we didnt learn a fucking thing. But then, life is a paradox, and we still may just tap off the dirt, get up, have some ice-cream, and try doing it another way, or simply doing a whole different thing. How we deal with failure is really a cultural question - and a question of mindset. Both things are easy to work on, although it may cost us a little at the beginning. It means embracing the great modern taboo, as sociologist Richard Sennett calls it. In much of America and Europe, people dont accept failure as part of the journey. In the US, Eric Weiner points out, you may go from dish-washer to millionaire and fail ten times on your way - but please be successful at the moment you tell your story! If you are currently recovering from failure, though, dont expect to have many friends to console you. Other countries, other approaches to failure: In the Nineties, many Icelanders left their old jobs in the fishing industry and became day traders and investors, in order to benefit from the free market reforms on the island. This worked quite nicely and everybody became rich on paper - or on cheap credit in foreign currencies. The Icelanders bought expensive cars, houses, and went to Europe for weekend shopping - until the financial bubble exploded in 2008
and swept it all away. Within a couple of weeks, their debts exploded as their national currency was devalued. Many of these rogue traders and their fellow countrymen lost everything they had. Did they drown in despair? To be honest, Im pretty sure that some of them did. But many others just started fishing again, or knitting, or whatever else they knew to do, and they had quite a lesson learned. Happiness is more than money," Eric Weiner points out. As long as you can afford a good stiff drink, most Icelanders think, youre gonna be okay. Now, even though I wouldnt propose to break the economy with your own experiments, I suppose we can learn something from this: If we accept failure, if we discuss it openly, if we stop tabooing it, we can experiment far easier and with less worries.
//! Deliberately Dilettante

When it comes to specialization, Im with Robert Heinlein: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve
equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. If Heinlein is right, were living in a world of many bugs and ants and mosquitos, but devoid of human beings. Specialization is a requirement nowadays, and its closely related to the demands of our economic system: We need to discover niches to perform certain functions better than anybody else; we need to become experts, knowing ever more details in ever smaller fields. The philosopher Paul Feyerabend thought this behavior was immature: Experts are blind for the full bandwidth of life, because they devote all their energies to nothing but one single area. I believe that our general blindness towards all things larger than ourselves result from expert behavior: If we ignore all the rest, we may become the best professionals in our fields, but we wont be able to really grasp life at large. My proposal to counterbalance a world of experts is to become deliberately dilettante. Nowadays, dilettantism has a bad reputation. Interestingly, this hasnt always been the case: Smart people like the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt actually advocated being a professional in one field, but a dilettante in as many others as we please.
In scientific history, dilettantes have been responsible for amazing discoveries and inventions: Just think of self-described dilettantes like Albert Einstein, or Niels Bohr, and of the many other undercover dilettantes. Having multiple identities is conducive to happiness, as the already much cited Eric Weiner puts it. I agree with him, because human beings are dilettantes by nature, even though you might prefer to call us polymaths. We arent the best in either long or short distance running, swimming, jumping, or fighting, but we are better in all of them than most specialized animals. We can eat pretty much anything, we can drink pretty much anything, we can live pretty much anywhere. Why shouldnt we work and think and play in more than one field?
//! Dont Go for Rewards

Specialization and adherence to external rulesets arent necessarily in vogue because they are so nice and interesting. Its that they are encouraged through society, and rewards for conforming and specializing seem to be much higher than rewards for doing things in new ways we still have to discover. As this is true both for both old currencies in life - paychecks and promotions, - theres a lesson in here: If you are looking for paychecks and promotions, you
better conform. Your flawless CV will get you the old jobs. And the more you specialize, the higher you get promoted, the higher becomes your paycheck. (Until your industry becomes obsolete, that is.) Even when we know that life is not about paychecks and promotions, and even when we have created our own definitions of success, these rewards can still be tempting. They are tempting because they are what we were taught to strive for, because we grew up and lived in a society that values them during our whole lives. It is here where we have to learn to distrust ourselves: Because we learnt these things during decades, our intuition may trick us. It may tell us to go for these rewards, because our parents did, our friends and everybody else does, and media and marketing tell us this is still the right thing to do. I know that distrusting your intuition can be hard. The possible consequences of not going for rewards could be finding yourself living on the streets without any friends, without any money, without food to eat, and without a shelter for the night. On the other hand, it could also mean finding yourself traveling to exotic places, bringing a whole bunch of friends along, receiving a nice income stream from doing things you love to do, eating fresh fish, having coconut cocktails, and dancing the hula hoop.
We overestimate risk, we underestimate opportunity. Its your decision to accept the challenge.
SEVEN: Deciding to Change

LIFE IS A PROCESS OF BECOMING, A COMBINATION OF STATES WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH. WHERE PEOPLE FAIL IS THAT THEY WISH TO ELECT A STATE AND REMAIN IN IT. THIS IS A KIND OF DEATH. ANAS NIN Life is flux. Life is change. Life is a process. The less we struggle to keep it in a certain fixed state, the better. Like Anas Nin said, if we merely try to maintain everything like it is, we are closer to death than to life. While we need some stability in our life, trying to avoid change is futile. If we really understand this, we can make things easier for ourselves. If we know that change will happen anyway, it will be easier to flow with it, and give it some direction - as good as we can, or as much as we want. There is another notion to this, and its related to dilettantish living: If we only stay in our comfort zone, our life will be contracting. We will be entering the boredom zone on our flow map, and we will feel smaller than we really are, losing freedom of thought and movement. This is what being in a rut feels like: Every morning, we prepare the same coffee, we see the same faces, we do the same work in exactly the same order.
We dont need another person anymore to strip us of sovereignty, we do it ourselves. This is what happens to bored workers, voters, housewives, busdrivers, lovers, managers, unemployeds, business travelers, retirees, and college kids all over the world: Even though the world is right here, waiting for us to dance along, we are stuck in our routines and we lose the ability to look beyond them. We prepare the same meals, we see the same TV shows, we visit the same web sites. We even worry about the same worries. For a contrast, embrace change. Enter risk zone. You already know its not about base-jumping from the highest building in the world. (Though you might do that.) First of all, its about preparing a different breakfast. Its about kissing that person. Its about taking that flight. Suddenly, space will expand, and thats a good thing. You leave the narrowness of your comfort zone and encounter a whole new world. The best thing about it? Comfort zone wont go away. You can always go back to it later. And if you really decide to leave it for a while, in order to explore a little, you may always bring your favorite cuddle pillow along. (Douglas Adams recommended a towel. That might be a good idea, too.)
//! A Decisive Decision

Do you know that guy who always knows which restaurant to go to, which movie to see, which cocktail to order, and which fork to use? This isnt necessarily the guy who knows all and everything about your city, movies, drinks, and etiquette - its the guy who decided to be decisive. Our problem nowadays isnt just that we make bad decisions. Its that we dont make any decisions at all. And not making any decisions isnt a recommendable strategy to pursue when we are living in an always changing, always adapting Age of Anything Goes. (Its not even a recommendable strategy when its your turn at the icecream man. You might end up getting a lemon-and-brownie cone, and, honestly, lemon totally doesnt go with brownie!) The decision to become decisive, thus, is the first one weve got to make. Its a tough one, and many of us will struggle with it, but its also a very helpful one, because it sets the stage for our upcoming decisions.
//! How to Decide

Once we decide to be decisive, decisions turn out to be less sucky than we thought they were. And we just thought they were sucky because no-one ever taught us how to make them. This is because there are many people out there who prefer to decide for us - but it doesnt have to stay this way. As we have seen, change will happen anyway - if we do something about it or not. No decision is a decision, too - even though we might not notice it, because we close our eyes to it: Our career turns into a certain direction. Our kids grow. Our dreams vanish. People around us get older and die, and so do we. It all happens - if we decide to do something about it or not. What we lose in the latter case, is sovereignty. By making decisions, we make our life manageable: We determine something, so we dont have to worry about the alternatives anymore. Making decisions is not necessarily about finding the best solution, but about finding an acceptable one, expending the justifiable time and effort. This will almost always be better than to delay a decision endlessly, and lose sovereignty! Many managing and leadership coaches focus on teaching to become a proactive rather than a reactive decision-maker. I believe this is a useful lesson to incorporate in our personal life as well: While we will always have both
kinds of decisions in our life, becoming a bit more proactive will certainly improve our sovereignty - and this allows us to move further beyond rules. The trick to making decisions is to find a balance between rationality and intuition: A mere rational approach to important decisions can lead to never-ending pondering, because we never have all the facts our reason would like to have in order to decide. Intuition, on the other hand, is not transparent, and, as shown already, it may trick us by being a reflection of our parents and teachers feelings, rather than our own. Consequently, its often best to combine the two sides: Consider the objective facts, but dont go against your feeling, because this would make it a lot harder to pull through with your decision. The exception to this is if you identify the feeling as resulting from rules and limitations you would like to transcend. If you are unsure, just compare the options you have with your list of values. They can be a useful guidance here. Remember: Acting is Choosing! Dont stress out about every single step you might or might not take in advance. Rather, try to experiment, and see how it works.
//! Decision as Process

If you are still in doubt about how to treat with upcoming decisions, it could help to understand that, just like life, decision isnt an event, but a process. As outlined above, deciding means closing certain doors at certain moments in our lives. This is what makes life manageable. It doesnt mean that we cannot open that door again in the future, though. Maybe the situation behind that door will have changed by then - but this is not a drama, but merely part of the human condition. Its as simple as that. Being prepared to change our decisions later isnt being flaky or irresponsible its a necessary strategy against apathy! As human beings, we simply do not have all the information we would need to make definite decisions. Thus, we have to work with what we have got, and move along. If new information comes up later on, its just smart to adjust our decision accordingly: We may get a divorce if we find out that our husband is a violent idiot. We may quit our job if we see that the company we work for is destroying the environment. We may close our blog if the topic we wanted to write about three months ago just doesnt matter to us anymore.
Life is flux, and so are decisions. Or, I don't care about the balderdash I spouted yesterday, as late German chancellor Konrad Adenauer famously said.
EIGHT: Productivity Beyond Rules

I HAVE BEEN IMPRESSED WITH THE URGENCY OF DOING. KNOWING IS NOT ENOUGH; WE MUST APPLY. BEING WILLING IS NOT ENOUGH; WE MUST DO. LEONARDO DA VINCI We reset our mindset. We found our methods. We decided to become decisive. Now, the moment has come to start designing and building in the material world. If until now we created everything from dark matter to fixed stars in our personal universe, now its time to build an atmosphere where we can live and thrive, and our very own planet.
//! The Compass

Many people believe we are here for a reason. We are here to create something, to let something out thats already inside us. Unfortunately, this is either esoteric bullshit or totally overwhelming for most of us: Follow your passion? Sure, but how? The good news is that, at this point of the book, you have already created something like your personal compass, and a blueprint for the life you want to
live: This compass is connected to your true self, and it finds expression in your values, goals, and definitions for success. If you are still not sure what to do, or why what you are doing isnt feeling like the right thing to do, dare to question if these things really are in line with your self. There is a beautiful passage in the Upanishads: You are what your deep driving desire is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will; As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny. What is your deep driving desire? What are your deeds? What is your destiny? If you stay true to your values, true to your wants and needs, true to your definitions of success, you are on the right track. Remember Maslow? We looked at him and his hierarchy of needs way back in chapter 5. The highest pursuit of human existence, he claimed, was that of self-actualization. What motivates people to act on that level, and what are their characteristics? According to an Economist article on the topic, people at this level are seeking truth, rather than dishonesty; uniqueness, not bland uniformity; completion, rather than incompleteness; simplicity, not unnecessary complexity;
playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery; and self-sufficiency, not dependency. Its here were we have to start: Its not about creating an image of ourselves, in order to impress others. Its about impressing ourselves - by acting in accordance with our values and ideas. If we do that, we will be able to make a difference in much larger contexts, too. Even if you are a very rational person, these words by Alan Moore, magician in training and one of the most acclaimed comic-writers of our times, bring it to the point: When we are doing the will of our true self, we are inevitably doing the will of the universe. In magic, these are seen as indistinguishable, that every human soul is in fact one human soul. Its the soul of the universe itself, and as long as you are doing the will of the universe, then it is impossible to do anything wrong.
//! The Trick to Getting Things Done

Productivity hacks can be just as distracting as they can be useful. There is only one truth behind all of them: Too small? Ill repeat it:
YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS.
YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS.

(Its not my fault its so fucking simple, and so much work at the same time.)
You have to become conscious. Yes. You have to become inspired. Okay. You have to dream. Granted. You have to read, you have to learn, you have to exchange ideas. Thats all true. But: The one and single most important thing is that you have to take action in order to make your personal planet livable. Once you are conscious, you have to assume the consequences and make your move. Once you are inspired, you have to channel this inspiration into creation. Once you have dreamt your dream, read your book, learned your lesson, exchanged your ideas, you have to get up and start doing the thing thats on your mind. The anarchist Hakim Bey once asked: Where did we cross that line where we forgot that making a documentary about how everyone would like to have a food co-op is not the same as having a food co-op? Even if the concept of a food co-op is a bit weird for you, and you never planned doing a documentary, Beys words are still true in their essence: Its not only not enough to think and dream. Its not enough to write about these dreams either (or make a documentary). At some moment, we have to leave the meta level, and just start doing.
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration, Thomas Alva Edison famously stated back in 1902. As far as my experience goes, these 99% dont have to freak us out, as there are two little secrets to them: For one, we dont have to create these 99% in one single move, but by walking the wellknown gentle little huge steps. Two, the sweating 99% Edison talks about dont have to be done by just one single person. Instead, forces can be joined with others, leading to higher motivation, better and smarter work, and ultimately, a bigger impact. Thus, to the actions of inspiring and transpiring, lets add a little bit of conspiring.
//! A Conspiracy for Change

Conspiracies have a bad reputation - and deservedly so: They are often sinister plots created by vicious people that want to subjugate everybody else. As friendly anarchists and personal sovereigns, we want to have a much nicer (and better!) approach to conspiracy: We will build anything from a conspiracy of two, to mastermind groups with half a dozen people, to huge underground networks of connected sovereigns. While size and functionality can differ, all of these friendly conspiracies have one central motive: Facilitate creation, in order to facilitate change.
Change often needs to be facilitated with some tricks because of our inherent opposition to it. This opposition is called homeostasis. Originally, homeostasis refers to the bodys automatic efforts to maintain a constant, normal state of the blood stream. At a psychological level, homeostasis is our resistance to change. It is something inherently human, just like armpit hair or dental caries and just like armpit hair and dental caries, we dont have to accept it. The easiest way to make change real, is to surround yourself with like-minded people that support and challenge you at the same time. For maximum impact, these people should probably be at the same place as you are, but accountability can work over larger distances, too, if you commit to regular reporting via a medium of your choice: Emails, Skype calls, Twitter messages all can be ways to keep each other updated on your progress. The size and forms of procedure of these conspiracies depends entirely on your taste. I would recommend you to give three main forms a try, because all of them have their advantages and disadvantages, yet all of them can help you to make massive change in your life a reality. The Conspiracy of Two: In this setting, you join forces with just one other person, in order to make a change in your life real or get an important task done. This other person could either be a peer totally on par with you, or a
mentor who passes his knowledge and experience on to you. For example, during the process of writing this book, I have been working in conspiracies with my friend Milo, keeping each other accountable on our daily productivity goals. At the same time, I regularly met to chat with Jonathan Mead, who helped me with his experience on how to get a book outlined, written and delivered. The Mastermind Group: A mastermind group generally consists of five to six persons and meets regularly to discuss topics of mutual interest and helps each other accomplishing their goals. Mastermind groups generally dont gather on a daily basis, but rather once every fortnight or even every month. Members commit to get certain milestones of their work done in the intermittent time, and present their results and problems to the group, in order to discuss them and make sure they dont go astray while working on complex tasks. The Larger Network: An even larger network of likeminded sovereigns can meet in online forums and mailing lists, and ideally also manages to meet up in real life from time to time. Commitment in these groups is often loser, the exchange of ideas happens in a less intimate setting. The advantage of this setting is that thanks to bigger membership numbers, more brains can be tapped in order to overcome hurdles and issues when working on important
goals. These networks often have a focus on a specific topic, in order to attract people with similar backgrounds and goals. There are myriads of communities out there gathering around any imaginable topics - from career advice to digital camera techniques. In order to make change real for you, I invite you to join Mails Beyond Rules, a newsletter created as a companion to this book. More on that at the end of chapter 9!
//! Imperfectionism
Heres a sad truth for you: The planet you are going to create wont be perfect. There will always be some flaws to it. Even the best painting suffers from one bad stroke. Even the best computer application has a couple of bugs. Even the best speech ebook includes a couple of typos. (Ahem!) This leaves you with two options: You may despair and not even start. You may stay in your job, do what you are told, and simply try to do things good enough so you wont get fired. But then, you wont get anywhere. You wont realize your human potential. You wont create the thing you were meant to create on this planet - perfect or not, - and you will waste the years you are given.
The other option: You do it anyway. You do it anyway, although you know that the thing you create wont be perfect. Although you know that it could be done even better. You just put in the effort, you put in all your energy, you work until exhaustion, and you create that thing. Only afterwards will you notice that its exactly the tiny little flaws that make it so adorable.
//! Stay With Difcult

Adopting a dilettantish approach to life doesnt mean that we should be fickle. It means following our interests for the sake of it, and stop being strategic about everything in life. At the same time, dilettantes as much as specialists need to learn to stay with difficult in the process of reaching personal sovereignty. The reason for this is that we need to overcome plateaus of apparent deadlocks in order to become good at something; in order to create things that are worth our time. When finding ourselves procrastinating, either of three things is happening: 1. The task still needs some time to think about. 2. The task sucks, is unimportant, and should be abandoned.
3. The task sucks, but its important, and we have to do it anyway. When the third thing happens, stay with difficult can be your mantra: Instead of abandoning that text, that piece of art, or that important discussion with your loved one, dont give up. If its the right thing to do, just do it - even when its difficult.
//! Escape from Coffee-shop Nation

Nowadays, everybody is an entrepreneur, operating from the coffee-shops around the world. And if they arent yet, they probably aspire to become one. While this is certainly a great way to create our own work beyond rules, its not necessarily the best solution for all of us. I see people leaving a horrible job and becoming self-employed - only to make their life worse than it was before. They develop certain character traits that are more dreadful than even the worst bosses on the planet, and they exchange a sterile office environment for almost as sterile coffee-shops. They dont work 9 to 5 anymore, but even longer, worrying they might not be productive enough to qualify as a modern entrepreneur. A related trap is mobile anxiety: Travel and movement have become a fetish for many people, to the point its not healthy anymore. It is true that we are
living in times of unprecedented mobility. Travel has never been easier - but its up to us what we make of it. Not all of us have the desire to become permanent travelers, and many of us feel very rooted in their communities and dont wish to leave anytime soon. Location-independence beyond rules is not about moving around all your life, but about knowing you could leave tomorrow, if you felt the desire to do so. You can determine how your life plays out by deciding where you live, Eric Weiner writes. If you are living at a place that sucks, surrounded by people that hate you, it might be time to create something better. Work beyond rules might mean you have to escape cubicle nation, as described by Pam Slim in her book of the same name. Just be sure to do it for the right reasons. And if you already operate as an entrepreneur or freelancer, but still feel in a rut, maybe you should consider to escape coffee-shop nation, too!
//! Shipping
The key to the reinvention of who you are (), is to become someone who ships, Seth Godin writes. He is right: Creating is something very different from imagining: Its leaving our virtual brain-world and entering the material sphere.
Finishing is very something different from creating: You dont stop halfway. You dont stop at 95%. You dont stop at 99%. You dont stop at 99,9%. You go all the way, you stay with difficult, you get it done. Shipping, then, is still very different from finishing: You not only complete whatever it is you were creating - you send it out to the world. You show it to people. You open yourself to critique - and awards.
NINE: Live Your Own Adventure

Have you ever seen The Amazing Race? I am not much of a TV person, but the idea behind this show somehow chimes with me: You travel around the world with a partner, you fulfill a couple of tasks, and at the end you can win a million dollars. What other series has ever been so close to life? Of course, the million dollars and the sometimes unimaginative tasks are just the TV decoration. But the rest of it could pretty much be your life - with you being the one to decide upon the rules youd like to admit, and the rules youd like to transcend. What if you could have your own amazing race, and what if it would never end?
//! The Delusion of Awesomeness

Whats amazing? Whats interesting? Whats awesome?
Charles Eisenstein rightly criticizes the routine use of words like 'awesome,' 'amazing,' and 'incredible' to describe what is actually trivial, boring, and mundane. The reason for this exaggerated use is marketing: Apparently, the more awesome, amazing, and incredible your product is, the more you sell. The more awesome, amazing, and incredible your life is, the more people look up to you. If sex sells well, awesomeness seems to sell even better. A thought for your consideration: Whats awesome for me might be plain-vanilla for you - and vice-versa. Thus, why listen to me, or the other guy selling his product? Lets take last years social media hype: Thousands of people out there claimed to be living the most awesome and exciting lives we could probably imagine. Still, they managed to answer their emails within minutes, they updated their Facebook profiles every hour, and they ceaselessly published tidbits on Twitter. Is it interesting to engage with these new mediums? It surely is for me. But is it the ultimate tool for measuring awesomeness and excitement in our lives? I strongly doubt it.
If everything is awesome, amazing, and incredible, nothing is. And we are getting there: If the term awesome isnt dead by now, its at least seriously wounded. Im more with my friend Joel, who emphasizes living a life worth writing about. That means living first, and writing about it later. Now, what would be a life writing about? Chris Guillebeau is visiting all the countries in the world. Patricia Taylor is engaging in a wonderful new adventure each month. Raam Dev is living and traveling as a sustainable digital nomad. Tammy Strobel is changing the world through simple living. Does that mean you have to do any of these things? Of course not! The litmus test for an interesting life is your own satisfaction. What will you do?
//! What Are the Odds?

Do you know whats really awesome? Awesome as in the dictionary definition of extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear?
BEING ALIVE = AWESOME!
Awesome is you, being here. You, being here, right now. Breathing. Reading these words. This is your life. Yes: You are alive. You might feel empty, or depressed, or discontent, or lacking. But all that doesnt matter. Because you are already here. Consider this: Stars only make up approximately 0,5% of the observable universe. And still, there are at least 10^21 stars in it. (Thats one sextillion. Or 10,000 million million million. A 1 with 22 zeros!) One of this sextillion of stars is our sun. Around it, good old mother Earth makes her turns. She has been around for about 4.55 billion years, but only about 200.000 years ago, anatomically modern-appearing human beings originated in Africa. As those courageous ancestors of ours didnt follow the rules set up by others before them, the human-shaped world as we know it emerged. We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. Richard Dawkins
I dont agree with Richard Dawkins on many things, but I agree with him here. Consider the numbers. Think about the probabilities. What are the chances for us being here? What are the chances for you being you, and me being me? And here we are, worrying about the number of our Twitter followers. What are the odds? I find myself thinking about this often. What are the fucking odds to be here, right now? Is it a divine intervention? Maybe it is. Or is it pure coincidence? Quite possibly so. But whatever it is, shouldnt we be glad about it? Shouldnt we be moving our asses to show some appreciation for being here? Not to please our gods and goddesses, our bosses, our mum - but simply to celebrate the astonishing, the mind-boggling, the amazing, the incredible, the stunning, the wonderful, the jaw-dropping, the marvelous and miraculous, the truly fucking a-w-e-s-o-m-e fact that we are alive?
//! You Are Not Alone: An Invitation to Stay Beyond Rules

Going beyond rules can be a solitary exercise at times. It doesnt have to be, if you dont want it to. Remember the chapter on friendliness? Friendliness is a two-way road, and it leads to a wonderful thing called trust. Trust is where your universe meets another, knowing that they wont clash, but harmonize and cooperate, or, at least, peacefully coexist. As it turns out, this will be much easier once you move beyond rules: Instead of demanding a pledge of allegiance from every other person you meet, you are free to engage with them openly and see what you can learn from each other. I hope this little book has helped you to move into the right direction. Unfortunately, the majority of books and manifestos lead to zero change at all. During the creation of this iteration of Beyond Rules, I cudgeled my brains thinking about how to make this book a little different. I came up with a solution that should help you get going. While it doesnt cost you a single dollar, it does cost you a certain commitment. Thats why I only publish the details here: You made the effort to read until the end, so youre surely more committed than the people who only saved this downloaded this book to their hard-drive and will forget about it soon.
I invite you to join Mails Beyond Rules: A friendly email newsletter dedicated to people who would like to change, reach personal sovereignty, and go beyond rules. Once per week, you will get a mail with exercises, updates, and concrete instructions to implement strategies for going beyond rules in your life. Whats more, you are invited to share your insights, break-throughs, and challenges with me and, if you like, the other members of the newsletter. The course will run over several months, making sure you get to implement the changes you want to make at your own pace, and without getting buried in a myriad of fluffy mails. The reasons for not including more exercises in this book are three: 1. I couldnt possibly have finished this thing on time if I did try to include them. (Ahem) 2. Theres not much sense in including too many exercises into a book like this: It will either stop the text flow, or the exercises will be ignored. Sending them out week by week will hopefully be more entertaining and less overwhelming for the both of us.
3. Most importantly, this is a book about going beyond rules. What good would it be to prescribe ways to do this? Instead of merely creating another ruleset, Id like you to take this opportunity to think of exercises for yourself. My proposals might then provide another look at things. Sounds good? Click here to sign up!
//! Its Up To You

THERE IS AN OLD SANSKRIT WORD, LILA (LEELA), WHICH MEANS PLAY. RICHER THAN OUR WORD, IT MEANS DIVINE PLAY, THE PLAY OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION AND RE-CREATION, THE FOLDING AND UNFOLDING OF THE COSMOS. LILA, FREE AND DEEP, IS BOTH DELIGHT AND ENJOYMENT OF THIS MOMENT, AND THE PLAY OF GOD. IT ALSO MEANS LOVE. LILA MAY BE THE SIMPLEST THING THERE IS--SPONTANEOUS, CHILDISH, DISARMING. BUT AS WE GROW AND EXPERIENCE THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE, IT MAY ALSO BE THE MOST DIFFICULT AND HARD WON ACHIEVEMENT IMAGINABLE, AND ITS COMING TO FRUITION IS A KIND OF HOMECOMING TO OUR TRUE SELVES. STEPHEN NACHMANOVITCH
Appendix
//! Acknowledgements
I want to thank my friend Franck, even though he will probably never read this book, because hes too busy living beyond rules. Thats the good thing, really. Our conversations about anti-work over cheese fondue and lots of red wine showed me for the first time that my ideas of pursuing a new and different path outside the career world werent exclusively insane. 1000 DANK to Max for building new worlds out of wood, steel, and materials I dont know about, for being the first atheist wholl end up at Gods right-hand side, and for the clip arts. If any of you people reading this is rich, please send him a Samsonite suitcase full of money. He deserves that, and more! A huge thank you to Jonathan Mead, who kicked my ass more than once, and still let me work at my own pace - this book would still be a draft without you, man! Thanks to Benjamin, Rudi, and Philipp, for living way beyond rules, and to Daniel for challenging me whenever we talk. Its hard to be happier than when drinking with you guys.
Thanks to the whole Cologne gang for Klsch, hospitality, and support! Thanks to my families in Germany and Colombia for not really making sense of this whole internet thing, and still nodding understandingly whenever I leave because I have to blog. Thanks to all the changebloggers (Ali, Bill, Jeanie, Lynn, Raam), for being the change we want to see in the world! Thanks to all the people who think and live first, and write on the internet second - especially to Chris Guillebeau (The Friendly Anarchist came into existence because of your writings), Michael Nobbs (my ally in micro productivity), Milo McLaughlin and the rest of my P2E gang (it never ends!), Lea Woodward (for being the entrepreneur-experimenteur par excellence!), Derek Sivers (for the fine recommendations!), Joel Runyon (for living a life worth writing about!), Robert Wringham (not just for the wonderful Bradbury quote!), David Cain (for challenging me with your content!), Lisa Baldwin (for taking Zen to the playing field!), Patricia Taylor (not just for walking with flowers with me!), Janet Brent (for being a living example when it comes to following your heart!), Tammy Strobel (for living more on less!), Tyler Tervooren (for taking riskology to the people!), Jade Craven (for a mention that changed a lot), Srinivas Rao (for your continuing support!), and many
more! (Im sure I forgot at least a dozen of you - as it must be in any good Thank you speech!) Without your inspiration and support I would probably be a stinky rich bureaucrat by now! Thanks to write_adam for the wonderful Nebula photo (provided under a CCBY-NC license)! Last but not least: Thanks to you for reading all the way through to the acknowledgments! This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to share it with your friends! Written in Cartagena de Indias, Bogot D.C., Cologne, and the Danish West coast, 2010-2011.
//! P.S.
So you were already going to call me a lame-ass because of the lack of a Wilde quote in this book? You didnt think I would let that happen, did you?! A MAP OF THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE UTOPIA IS NOT WORTH EVEN GLANCING AT. OSCAR WILDE Now, please stay in touch via Mails Beyond Rules and The Friendly Anarchist (RSS) - Im sure there will come up several occasions to call me a lame-ass with good cause!
//! P.P.S.
Far beyond rules, theres a double rainbow waiting for you. And at the end, the ice-cream man, talking to a (tamed and friendly) three-headed monster. Go see them!

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Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 2

Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 3

ONE: Introducing Rules ....................................................................9

TWO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still Learn Something) .............17

THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete) Bestiary ....................24

FIVE: Your Space Beyond Rules ......................................................49

SIX: Unmethodology .......................................................................63

SEVEN: Deciding to Change .............................................................73

Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 5

EIGHT: Productivity Beyond Rules .................................................80

NINE: Live Your Own Adventure .....................................................93

Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 6

Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 7

Alternatively, you need to go beyond rules.

Beyond Rules The Friendly Anarchist 8

ONE: Introducing Rules

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//! The Age of Anything Goes

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//! Beyond Rules

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//! Lifestyles versus Rules

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//! The Go Beyond Rules Flow Map

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TWO: How to Believe Nothing (and Still Learn Something)

//! The Buddha Incident

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//! My Story in 200 Words

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//! How to Learn Stuff

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//! Gentle Little Huge Steps

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THREE: Rules and Ruloids: An (Incomplete) Bestiary

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//! Entangled Dependencies

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//! The System to End All Systems?

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//! Personal Sovereignty 101: Your Own Philosophy of Life

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FOUR: Space Travel

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//! Drop-Outs and Opt-Outs

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//! Treating the Symptoms versus Going to the Core

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