How to Build a Life You Don't Need to Escape From
The vacations, the scrolling, the wine, the fantasy of being someone else somewhere else. What if the problem is the life you built?
The persistent desire to escape your life—through travel, distraction, substances, fantasy—signals a life built on surfaces. A life you don't need to escape is a life with depth. One rooted in what's actually true for you rather than what you were told to want. It still has problems. But the shape of it matches who you actually are.
the escape impulse
You daydream about quitting. Moving somewhere. Being someone else entirely.
You scroll for hours, not because you're lazy but because being somewhere else—even digitally—feels better than being here. You drink to soften the edges of evenings you should enjoy. You plan vacations months out and feel the dread creep back the moment you return.
Sunday nights are hard. Monday mornings are harder.
You know your life looks good. Job, apartment, relationship, the whole thing. People would trade places with you. You remind yourself of this constantly, as if gratitude could close the gap between how things look and how they feel.
It doesn't work. You still want out.
the life you built
You built this life carefully. Made the right choices. Followed the path that was supposed to lead somewhere good.
The degree that made sense. The job that pays. The city where opportunities are. The relationship that works on paper. The apartment you can afford. The routine that holds it all together.
You planned. You executed. You did what you were supposed to do.
And now you're here—inside a life that matches the template but doesn't match you.
why you need to escape it
The life you built was built for someone else's idea of what you should want.
Parents' hopes. Cultural scripts. Instagram's highlight reel. The implicit promise that if you checked these boxes, you'd feel settled. Successful. Happy.
So you checked the boxes. And you feel like you're living in a house someone else designed. The walls are fine. The furniture is fine. You walk through it every day feeling like a guest.
The escape impulse is intelligence. Your body telling you: this doesn't fit. This isn't deep enough to hold you.
You built a life on surfaces. Now you're drowning in shallows.
what a life you don't need to escape looks like
A life you don't need to escape is a life with depth. Roots. Honesty about what actually matters to you—and the willingness to build around that instead of around appearances.
It still has hard days, conflict, boredom, frustration. But you're not constantly fantasizing about being somewhere else.
You wake up and the day ahead doesn't feel like something to get through.
Your work—even when difficult—connects to something real. Your relationships feel chosen. Your space feels like yours. Your time includes things that actually restore you, not just numb you enough to keep going.
Some lives look impressive and feel like cages. Some lives look simple and feel like freedom. The difference is depth. A shallow life needs constant escape. A deep life can hold you.
the honest inventory
What in your life do you actually want to be doing?
Not what looks good. Not what you've invested too much to quit. Not what would disappoint people if you stopped. What do you actually want?
And what are you doing only because you think you should? Because it's expected? Because you started and now you don't know how to stop?
The gap between those two lists is why you want to escape.
You need to stop living someone else's. Piece by piece, choice by choice, you close the gap—keep what's actually yours, release what was never meant for you.
the building
You can't blow up your life overnight. Most people can't. But you can start building toward depth.
One honest conversation. One boundary. One thing you stop doing because you only did it for appearances. One thing you start doing because it actually feeds you.
Build for depth instead of impressive. Ask "does this feel like mine?" before "does this look right?"
The life you don't need to escape from isn't waiting somewhere else. It's built here, slowly, by choosing what's true over what's expected. Over and over until what you've built actually holds you.
going deeper
Shedding a shallow life and building a deep one is real work. It asks you to unlearn what you were taught to want. To root yourself in truths that don't come from templates or timelines. To discover who you actually are underneath the expectations—and live from there.
Returning to Center: Passages for Reconnecting with the Spirit, Changing the World, and Becoming Who You're Meant to Be explores this territory fully—the shedding, the discovering, the becoming. To go deeper, start here.
staying
A life you don't need to escape from is one you can stay in.
Present. Here. Able to stay without numbing yourself to do it.
The escape impulse is honesty. Something doesn't have depth. Your body knows it.
Listen to it. The wanting out is the beginning of finding your way in—to a life that's actually yours.
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