Definitions of lifestyle on the Web:

* A person's pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions.

www.esd.rgs.org/glossarypopup.html

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Note added at 9 mins (2006-08-30 16:52:58 GMT)
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Lfestyle

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Note added at 9 mins (2006-08-30 16:53:30 GMT)
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LIFESTYLE

e.g.

'X made up his mind to combine his love of machinery with his way of life and opened/set up . . . '

A suggestion

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Note added at 30 mins (2006-08-30 17:14:23 GMT)
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Well, 'twas only a 3 - and only a suggestion . . .

However . . . to start with, I wrote 'lifestyle' - and then I deleted it and substitued 'way of life', because of the context. 'Lifestyle' suggests choices about things like the way we furnish our homes, the kind of food we eat (and with which sauces !) the cars we drive, the holidays we choose, our leisure-time activities etc.
But, as I understand it, X changed something bigger than all of that (even though his choice would also have affected those things). He made a choice about the way in which he was going to live - by running his own firm and working for himself, rather than being employed by someone else, making his passion his job . . . which would have had an effect on his entire way of life, rather than simply on his lifestyle choices . . .

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