A phrase that has always resonated with me is “9 to 5 until you’re barely alive.” This refers to the typical path a lot of people choose to follow: get a safe job and sit at a desk until you’re about 65 1/2 years old.
I love entrepreneurship, partly because that life is so terrible to me. I meet numerous people who hate their jobs and accept that it has to be that way until they retire.
“Uninspiring” comes to mind.
They were told this their entire lives, so they believe it. This is how the world worked for our parents and their parents, so it is how it must work for us.
People tell me I’m a dreamer. They tell me to live realistically. I never run out of people who dislike their lives who tell me how I should live. They tell me what I should believe. They tell me what I should value. My realization: to live as everyone wants me to, I must live the life of Harold Crick (from Stranger Than Fiction):
No thank you. Keep the prepackaged life, sanitized of all disappointment but also sanitized of all adventure.
Most people live today trying to avoid failure.
They don’t try so they won’t fail. Failure is that scary to them.
This might work, but it might not. I’m OK with that.
