Well, Back to the Real World: Some Bullshit We Tell Oursevles

I remember going on vacation as a kid (in a station wagon packed with 5 kids, driving from Pennsylvania to Florida, Griswold style) and it was amazing to see the ocean, palm trees, and lizards.

We’d have a great time, and then it was “back to the real world” of Pittsburgh winters and homework.

That feeling would set in at the end of each trip I took. Leaving to go home was like having a painful breakup. I didn’t want to return to “the real world”.

Thinking about that as an adult, it brought up one of the most important questions I think you can ask yourself: who defines your “real world”?

I grew up with the mentality that “the real world” meant unfulfilling work, grey skies, and unhappiness. Because that’s the “real world.” Those other people living happy lives doing what they want? They aren’t living in the “real world” like us. No, we don’t have that luxury because we’re living in the “real world”.

That is crazy. That’s like going to an ice cream shop and being told “No, sorry, the double dark chocolate chunk is only for other people. You only get vanilla.”

That’s bullshit. But that’s what we do with our lives. We limit ourselves to the vanilla of life because we think that’s all we can have, and it’s a self-fulfilling destiny.

But vanilla sucks. So go get the god damn double dark chocolate chunk ice cream of life. Because you can. The only one tell you you can’t is you.