How to Get Un-Fricking-Stuck as an Adult

A shot of whisky for your courage when you're spinning inside your own head

You know when you can’t make any progress because you keep spinning in circles with your ideas and can’t figure out WHICH ONE IS THE BEST ONE because YOU CAN SEE SO MANY PROS/CONS FOR EACH, and then you have the curse of knowledge and you’re trying so hard to make something commercially viable, even though it’s maybe not exactly, precisely what you want to do, but if you just do what you REALLY want to do, you’re worried you’ll just be a self-important, dime-a-dozen fuckhead?

I hear this a lot.

I, myself, have gone through this.

And, I bet if there are aliens on Mars, they ALSO have gone through this.

But, remember when you were younger and way more spontaneous and impulsive and free-wheeling and creative and cool and brilliant and bright and so-very-unaffected, and you just threw things out there, without all of the belaboring and the torture and the uncertainty?

Remember when life was all a big, fun experiment—and the world belonged to you?

Remember when you weren’t crushed by your own nagging wisdom? The wisdom that tells you that you should really do things the ‘right way’; that you should really take your time before leaping into something you might regret; that you have acted hastily before, and it didn’t work out; that you can’t trust your own urges and excitable inclinations anymore; that you need to be SURE of it, before you act?

Ugh, #aging: the process by which humans turn into shriveled up puritanical prudes.

This is entirely weird, this phenomenon. You would think that, with time, a person would gain MORE certainty about life, not less. You would think that, with time, you would become more invincible than ever. I HAVE GONE THROUGH YEARS OF DERANGED HORSESHIT TO GET HERE, I AM A HERO, HEAR ME ROAR, WATCH ME LIGHT THIS CIGAR AND STRUT DOWN THIS ADVENTUROUS NEW ALLEYWAY WITH A SPRING IN MY STEP AND A FUCK-EVERYONE IN MY SOUL.

Instead, you know what happens?

We get old and we get tired.

Tired of dealing with the consequences of our own rash decisions, tired of having so many balls in the air, tired of having to clean up all of the messes, tired of feeling so pulled in every which way direction.

So then we put on our jammies and throw the latch on the door and close the curtains and hide from the UPS man and sit and stew and stew and stew and think in circles about what we should do with the few precious hours of our lives in which we are actually lit up & motivated.

It is not really that our motivation has waned, but the window in which we can actually get sh*t done has. Time becomes a precious commodity that you don’t just throw around willy nilly anymore. And therein lies the pressure: one must pick correctly.

Things feel more permanent now.

If you pick the wrong thing, you’re either going to be “stuck” doing it forever, or you’re going to look like a flitty, flighty moron who can’t stick to anything. Isn’t that funny? We’re afraid of being stuck, but we are also afraid of things not sticking.

In addition to this giant mind blister, with time comes experience, yes—but it also comes with the knowledge of all the things that can go wrong. Ah, the double-sided sword of wisdom! This is where we get the gift of all of that LOVELY overthinking. Overthinking is literally the tar on your feet. The tar on your tires! The tar on your braaaaiinnnn! I like to picture it like tar, because as soon as you picture that thick, black, sooty, sticky stuff all over your brain, it’s real easy to see why it would be hard to make any decisive decisions.

So, what’s a well-trodden, tarred-and-feathered darling to do when one is old and tired and cautious and uncertain about anything and everything???

We’ve got to go back to the one north star that has never let us down.

The ONE north star we have totally trivialized and minimized as adults.

The ONE north star that you can always count on to be a good idea, regardless of all other things.

That north star is a little something known in the normal world as….

…fun.

Please, don’t choke on it.

But, fun is the north star.

The older we get, we have got to stop thinking in terms of ‘what will be best,’ and start thinking in terms of ‘what will be the most fun.’ Because no matter what we pick, there will always be a set of problems that come with it. (We’re well aware! Our brains won’t shut up about it!)

BUT—not everything we choose will also have fun as the upside.

It might have money.
It might have prestige.
It might have security.
It might pet the sloppy back of your ego.

But, who cares if you aren’t enjoying your life?

None of those things will make you happy unless FUN is also a part of the equation.

So, I say: start here. Start with the fun. Start with the pleasure. Start with what you’re genuinely excited to try; to make; to do; to think about each and every day.

Start there.

Don’t overthink it.

Prioritize enthusiasm.

And then layer on all of the things you know in your prudish little adult fun-deprived brain that work: the strategy, the knowledge, the dos and donts, the stuff you have learned from a lifetime of being a person in this world.

Then, apply sparingly.

And make sure that whatever you do, you’re stuck being happy.