By Mohamed Ali - Technology & Digital Economy Commentary
April 17 2026 — A course taught at Stanford University is challenging one of the most common questions people ask themselves: what is the meaning of life?
According to Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, co-founders of the Life Design Lab at Stanford, that question may be doing more harm than good.
Most of us walk around asking: "What is the meaning of my life?"
That question sounds deep. It's actually a trap.
Evans and Burnett flip it entirely. Instead of hunting for the meaning of life, they teach you to design more meaning into the life you have right now.
Big difference.
Here’s a stat that continues to resonate across their workshops. When participants are asked how many lives they would want to live if given the chance, astronaut, artist, entrepreneur, parent, athlete, the average answer is seven or eight.
That suggests something deeper: people carry the curiosity, desire, and ambition for multiple lives, but operate within just one. In practical terms, that means many are only expressing a fraction of their full potential at any given time.
Rather than framing that as a limitation, Evans and Burnett position it as an opportunity. It points to unused capacity, time, direction, and decisions that have not yet been explored.
Despite this, many people remain in a holding pattern. Waiting for the right time, the right job, or the right signal to begin building a life that aligns with what they actually want.
According to Evans and Burnett, the issue is not a lack of talent or opportunity. It is the question being asked.
The Odyssey Plan: Try Three Lives, Not One#
To address this, they introduce a framework known as the Odyssey Plan.
It involves mapping out three versions of the next five years:
- Version 1 — Your current path, assuming things go well
- Version 2 — If that path disappears, what comes next
- Version 3 — If money and social judgment were removed, what would you choose
The third version often reveals ideas people tend to dismiss prematurely. However, when shared in group settings, these ideas are frequently recognized as realistic rather than extreme.
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Stop Planning. Start Prototyping.#
A common mistake, according to Evans, is treating life design as a long-term planning exercise.
Instead, the approach emphasizes action over prediction.
"You find your way by living into your life," Evans explains.
That translates into small, low-risk experiments, conversations, short projects, or testing interests in practical ways before making major commitments.
As Burnett puts it: "There is no knowing. There is only doing, learning, and growing."
Permission, Not Instruction#
At its core, the framework is not about introducing entirely new ideas. It is about enabling people to act on instincts and interests they may have already identified but postponed.
Burnett describes it directly: "At the end of the day, what we're really doing is giving people permission to live their lives."
That reframes the problem from lack of clarity to lack of action.
You don’t need to blow up your career, quit your job, or have everything figured out. Start small. Try one thing that moves you closer to the life you actually want—one conversation, one experiment, one honest question asked out loud.
You are bigger than the life you're currently living. The other 86% is waiting.