The screwed up thing about the health and wellness industry is that it’s designed to fit within burnout culture. It’s designed to treat symptoms rather than actually dealing with the underlying causes of why people are burning out and getting sick and unhealthy in the first place. It’s like doing a yoga class because you spend day after day hunched over a laptop, or going on your annual retreat to deal with the stresses of the rest of your year.

The reason you need these things is because of how unhealthy your lifestyle normally is. If we wanted real health and wellness, we’d have real food grown nearby, we’d have natural movement built into our days, purpose-driven work, intergenerational living, and community support. We’d spend more time outside getting fresh air, time in nature.

But cities aren’t designed with these things in mind; they’re designed for cars and industry. If we stopped treating wellness like it’s a product and instead looked at it from a lifestyle design perspective—if we built it into place—then we would no longer have to escape our lives to feel well.