The world of everyday life is a central concept in Husserl's philosophy. Its origins are not clear, however. It is often claimed that Husserl proposed the concept of 'Lebenswelt' rather unexpectedly (in 1936) and at the cost of destroying the continuity of his thought as a reaction to the growing popularity of the concept of 'Dasein' that had been introduced by Heidegger in the 'Being and time' (in 1927). The author finds this interpretation too simple and superficial. In his opinion problems subsumed under the notion of 'Lebenswelt' had been present in Husserl's writings at least twenty years before the name was first used. Husserl's unpublished manuscripts, books and lectures often referred to problems that directly or indirectly hinged on the idea of 'Lebenswelt'. Taking all of this into account plus the fact that 'Lebenswelt' is a private and individual experience for every human being, it is clear that we should accept as a logical possibility that different experiences of the world can be incommesurable, and their truth, though it appears unshaken to those who experience it directly, may in fact be no more that a sum of highly relativised visions of the world. But the author does not find this difficulty insurmountable.