The Adulthood Worth Escaping From

Escape Adulthood!

That’s our rallying cry.

Maybe it’s obvious, but we’re not actually calling for everyone to ditch their responsibilities. We’re not advocating strict diets of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. And we’re not suggesting that we all quit our jobs to muck around with Play-Doh all day long.

There are actually some sweet benefits that come from being an adult. (Ordering strawberry margaritas at a Mexican restaurant is just one of them.)

The “Adulthood” we encourage people to escape from is the one they create for themselves when they assume childhood is nothing more than a stage of life, a hermetically sealed portion of their past. It is the Adulthood with all the stupid rules, the one that demands we always do the safe and prudent thing, that we earn play through hard work, and that we must always, without exception, take ourselves way too seriously.

Yeah, that’s the Adulthood that sucks.

The hallmark of way too many “adult” lives is the propensity to “live for the weekends.” The work week is meant to be muddled through, a necessary evil required to pay the bills and finance the epic fun we are finally allowed to have on the weekend.

As an entrepreneur (and now an entrepreneur with a kid), I have found that my weekends are, by comparison to many of my peers, pretty boring. One would expect that in my line of work, I’d spend my time off galavanting about on some thrilling childlike adventures. Sometimes. But not often. I had begun to wonder if something was wrong with me or if I was living a hypocritical life.

But then I came across a quote from Hugh MacLeod of the wildly insightful Gapingvoid.com. He said:

Running a startup is full of extreme ups and downs. Which is why so many successful and happy entrepreneurs I know lead such normal, stable, unglamorous, “boring”, family-centered lives. Somehow they need the latter in order to balance out the former. Extra-curricular drama looks great in the tabloids, but that’s all it’s ultimately good for.

Aha! That explained a lot. Running a business brings its own share of drama. And fun. It’s exciting, engaging, and tremendously gratifying. My weekends tend to be a chance to recover from the adventure that is my daily life. I don’t feel any particular reason to thank God for Fridays and I never experience Sunday Night Dread, although I used to do both.

It occurs to me that the people living for the weekend are also yearning for an escape from the very same “capital A” Adulthood I started this post talking about. But the drama they indulge in is only a temporary fix that always ends with the cold shower known as Monday Morning.

Instead of escaping by means of cheap thrills, strong drinks, or mindless entertainment, might I suggest a more productive, long-term fix?

Escape instead from the rules that don’t exist but which are currently holding you back. Practice being courageous and begin to dream again. Let go of the assumptions that the workweek must always be drudgery and that passionate living can’t be a daily reality. Ask questions about your current situation and get curious about what some new choices might manifest. Tap into your wellspring of passion and work at becoming the linchpin you were created to be.

If Friday is your favorite day of the week, it might be time to make a change.

Life is too short to spend it living for the weekend.

Escape Adulthood!