I've always thought it would be nice to wake up as a born again Christian or an ultra-orthodox Jew. I mean, how cool would it be that the whole notion of "right" is defined for you? All you have to do is follow, put forth great effort, and your reward is certain. I know I'm oversimplifying. Religious life still leaves us with decisions and the gray zones of interpretation. I've heard that said path is neither easy nor always fun, mind you. But still. When you subscribe to religious belief, you acknowledge that there exists an established path between you and salvation.
When blazing your own, though, the going is slow, and the direction you take is often entirely unknown. As the saying goes: it's a jungle out there. And as for growing up while you're doing it? Gaining perspective? Calvin and Hobbes say that's a bunch of poo. As we always suspected when we were kids, being an adult is just like being a kid except your junk doesn't work, everything hurts, and you get tired at 9:00.
The early days of business can be a joy of masochistic sorts. The one and only holy grail is that you make enough money to survive until the next month. Myopia and the frenzied struggle for survival are comforting in that they keep you from noticing the peril ahead.
Building your own company is a fractal of building your own life: there are a lot of wonderful people involved, and there is a comforting degree of interconnectedness required...but at its root, much of the work of defining your business and making it yours is a lonely and introspective job.
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