So ever since I was 16 years old, 18 years old, in college etc.… And beyond, I’ve always been really fascinated about this notion of “lifestyle”– to me it is a pragmatic thing, a combination of pragmatics; being self-employed, being your own boss– funny enough, the notion of “entrepreneur”, wasn’t really even mainstream yet… 
What was my goals as a kid? 
Funny enough I still remember this notion of not wanting to “work for the man” ever since I was a highschooler, and the dream was… To get a high paying job like being a doctor lawyer, and this grand vision and making $100 an hour, just working for a few hours and then just chilling for the rest of the time.
It was quite formative to me, just make a bunch of money for the sake of making a bunch of money was never the goal. And also the desire to purchase property or home or whatever it was also not a virtue or concept instilled on me growing up. We always rented our whole lives… And on average we moved every one to two years, and therefore a consequence, the notion of warning a house wasn’t even a concept.
Also, still in high school, my sense of self pride was strong. I was so insanely proud, 1 million X proud that I was maybe the only person in my whole high school, or anyone I knew… Who actually worked hard for his own money, and bought his own first car! at the age of 15… I think paying $1000 or $1200 for my first car… A very sturdy and reliable 1991 Nissan Sentra SE — a four-door sedan car, five speed manual transmission. Pretty low miles, maybe $100,000 or so? Getting it from Kevin, one of my mom‘s clients at her old sushi restaurant, who was an autumn mechanic in Oakland. 
Anyways I had so much extreme pride to myself in my car. For a kid, the pride and joy of earning your own money and buying the thing you desire, was by far the most valuable thing. Not only that, but the pride that my car was a manual transmission… A five speed, and I had the ability to learn how to drive stick shift myself. Good memories of learning how to drive stick from my uncle Enzo, in the old Navy base in Alameda.
Anyways, I think maybe the problem in today’s world is we lack pride, self pride? And we tend to metric Kate our valor and self-worth via numbers, through 12 education to college and beyond.
For example, in school it is all about the grades, then your GPA, then your test scores, then the rank of your university, then the prestige of your job, then your salary, ones and zeros etc.
And then… When you become an adult, older maybe with kids or whatever, then becomes about your home price. Whether your house is worth 3.1 or $3.2 million, friends and family and random guests who check the proper value of your home on Zillow after the fact, rather than asking you directly.
Anyways, the reason why metrics are a poor measure of oneself is that if you are an 800 pound obese man, you cannot walk, but you are a trillionaire… And you own all the Rolls-Royce and Ferraris on the planet does that make you virtuous? I say no.
Desiredarum
Things to be desired
Also, as a man… What is it that we desire?
For example, I think one of the critical issues here is that men, it looks like there is something I call the Shorty guy syndrome – that Shorty guys will always feel inept, inferior… Because obviously you’re standing and valor is based on your height.
The reason why this is not fair is that it is mostly genetic, and maybe what you were fed as a kid.
For example… My insane gratitude that I was born in America, and raised on eating nothing but meat, Galbi Korean short ribs, and rice. I didn’t eat a single vegetable until I went to college.
As a consequence, I became very very tall, I’m around 5 foot 11… And I think I’m 182 cm tall.
Apparently in America, the average height of a man is only 5 foot seven, 5 foot eight? Even most of the famous actors and celebrities see on television, even Mark Wahlberg I think is only 5‘7“ tall? 
As a consequence, a lot of these Shorty guys end up taking steroids are doing weird stuff to increase the size of their muscles, their biceps, the width of their body, because this is something that could actually be changed with steroids, lifting weights etc. However, you’ve been if you take all the steroids on the planet, and even if you’re a trillionaire, you cannot magically become 5 foot 7 to 6 foot 2.
Even something very shocking… I ChatGPT the height of Donald Trump, and I think he is 6 foot two? 
The reason why I think it is important and critical to search the height of men, whether politicians, fitness celebrities, influencers whatever… Is that whether you like it or not, the tall guys will end up typically have more self-confidence, whereas the short guys will always feel inferior somehow.
Fortunately for myself… I’ve never been insecure about my height. I always knew that I was tall, obviously there were guys were taller than me… But I know that I was still in the “tall” category. And in high school in college… I certainly knew the guys who were short, or on the shorter end.
the Virtues of walking 
I think Plato once said, it is impossible for there to be a beautiful small or short woman. She is very very small and short.
I think there is a genetic biased that we will always prefer taller individuals. In fact, why is it that all the super models are about 5 foot 10 and beyond? Because tallness is a virtue that we all desire!
And also apparently it is pretty common for there to be successful rich Shorty guys who want to marry 6 foot tall supermodels, because they desire their next generation of children to be a lot taller than them. Strategy. As a consequence, the optimization for men is to become maximally rich and successful, and attract the most beautiful tallest babe, and have Beautiful children with them.
Men, older men without any kids are uninteresting. 
George Clooney is a loser, nobody cares about him anymore.
I think the big issue here is that a lot of people, who watched too much media, movies TV shows whatever… End up getting these strange new virtues or desired outcomes.
For example, there is a strange notion of being the most interesting man alive, but, all you do is drink whiskey and hard liquor, brought out your beard, and have sex with beautiful younger babes?
Let us be frank ,,, any man, who is on his deathbed at the age of 90, no children no legacy no nothing… We always end up regretting it.
You cannot end up leaving your Bitcoins to your dog 
Let it say that you die, with your 20 bitcoin or so… Can you leave it behind to your dog? Obviously not.
Even the notion of creating your own charitable foundation seems a little bit superficial… I would put trust in any random administrative person to figure out how to allocate funds, seems that 80% of the funds of a foundation  it’s just staff overhead… Paying the staff in office space of these administrators, who just click around and push around paper.
So a very simple thought for us men… Have at least one kid before you die. It could be a girl or a boy, just not a dog.
Are you allowed to be anti-dogs?
In two days insanely degenerate world, is it possible for you to be anti-dogs?
I will make the argument that dogs are 10,000 hundred thousand times worse for the planet and the “carbon footprint“, than any child. 
First, there is a chance that your kid can be the one who invented the amazing machine which they really fixes all the climate issues on the planet. Imagine Elon Musk but on steroids. 
Second, it is common for dogs to poop in public, even if the dog owners are quite vigilant. You’ll never see a grown child poop in public, even on the public sidewalk.
Strange purchasing behaviors
Let us also consider that dogs, you had to buy all the strange dog products for dogs and pets and animals, whereas for children they could just eat adult food.
Better to get sick than to die
One of the critical issues here is that maybe 99.9% of fatalities, which could be prevented to a certain degree is based on driving. Whether somebody hits you and you die, or whether you hit somebody somebody else and you kill somebody, etc.
As a consequence, perhaps you don’t want to die, minimum lifestyle is the supreme lifestyle.
Sometimes people make the other decision of thinking about purchasing a “safe” car, to offset the chance of dying in a car accident. But the strategy is not a good one because rather than buying safety, the more intelligent strategy is just not jump into the car at the first time! 
Why do we try to purchase decisions?
Another foolish thing… We tend to try to buy solutions to our problems. This is the American way. 
But I suppose a greater thing to consider… Is it possible for there to be a global economy which is not dependent on purchasing, advertising and marketing? Possibly —
Don’t think global
The reason why thinking about global, macro economics is not useful is that honestly, even if you became dictator the planet, and you had $100 trillion, whatever… It would be impossible for you to change the current global capitalistic market. Even if you had 100,000,000,000,000 times $100 trillion… You couldn’t do it.
This is where I advocate the simple local approach; change every day behaviors and tactics, rather than trying to change the planet.
 The planet does not need your saving 
A very interesting Taoist thought– to somehow think that the poor planet needs your help is a bit arrogant. The planet will be fine.
I think people who don’t go to church, don’t believe in God, don’t have a religion or whatever… they need some sort of new godhead, something to fasten their world beliefs to, etc. 
But what if I told you… With 100% certainty… That within 30 years there will be somebody who invented an ultra amazing magic machine which magically saves the planet forever? If that were the case… What would be the new direction of your life?