On first blush it sounds wise, but it's got a couple of massive unspoken flaws that can lead you down the garden path.

I don't want you blowing up your life and then spending years of blood, sweat, and tears to build a whole life that it turns out leaves you trapped in a new cage and even worse off financially than you are now.

What I do want for you is a life where you frequently feel powerful, fulfilled, content, and maybe even lazy with a deep happiness in that way you get from taking a nap on a sunny afternoon.

The people telling you to "build a life you don't want to escape" also want that for you, but their blind spots can lead you tragically astray.

I often see these blind spots show up in two ways. The first has to do with championing entrepreneurship. The second has to do with an erroneously fixed view of what will make you happy.

Aligning your source of income with your passions is not a silver bullet

See, this advice about "building a life you don't want to escape" is often used in the context of trying to convince you (or themselves?) that you'd be forever blissful if you started your own business doing something you're passionate about. Then, they argue, you won't yearn for vacations or retirement.

Not everyone is cut out for running a business.

Should you pursue your passions? Yes.

Should you start a business doing that thing? MAYBE.

Only if all of these are true:

• Do you like running businesses?
• Do you know how to run a business or are willing to learn rapidly?
• Is there sufficient market demand for your business?
• Do you have the resources needed to invest in the idea? (Time, capital, or both, depending on the business model.)

I mean, truly. Ask yourself if you get excited about tracking results in a spreadsheet and being good at like 20 things, ranging from writing to annual planning to marketing. Be honest with the answers.

Many people just aren't into that stuff. They'd rather be good at like 3 things and let someone else plug them into the whole system.

Not all passions should be monetized.

Let's be real, okay? It's really hard to make a livable wage around certain passions. Not impossible — the internet really does make all kinds of miracles happen. Like, there are people making tons of cash by filming videos of themselves playing with dolls. No joke.

But it's also true that some passions simply do not have sufficient market demand to pay your bills.

For instance, I know someone trying to make a living coaching poor people with self esteem issues.

That's a beautiful charity pursuit that would genuinely make the world a better choice. But, am I the only one who thinks maybe poor people might not be able to pay you?

Monetizing a passion can kill your passion.

The very act of monetizing your passion could actually rob you of the enjoyment.

There's a great book called the E-Myth, that basically is all about this phenomenon. The pie lover opens a pie shop and then begins hating pies because she works like a dog running a business and she never wanted to do that in the first place. That's why I said you should only start a business based around your passion if you like running businesses.

I felt the edge of this feeling when I was considering starting a YouTube channel. I was in the research phase, thinking about what subject(s) to make videos about. I was really interested in the mommy vlogs and home-organizing channels, so I shot a video baking with my daughter and a few of me cleaning and organizing.

Before I even got to the point of editing and posting any, I began to feel this thing happening. When I'd be spending time at home with my family, I would start wondering if I should be filming something. I'd be thinking about whether I could get a good camera angle and whether the lighting was good.

I realized that turning my family into a commodity was going to destroy my ability to be fully present with them and care about the right things, so I nixed that idea.

There are also lots of things I like doing from time to time, but would turn into forms of torture if I tried to do them frequently enough or at the volume required to monetize them: Reading, exercising, hosting dinner parties or brunches, cooking and baking, taking a walk by myself…

There's so much more to life than trying to monetize everything.

Now that I'm solidly middle-aged and have had a few great phases of my career, I'd like to experience things in life without worrying about how to make money off of them.

I'd like to travel without a schedule, and be fully present — not trying to film it.

I'd like to have lunch with some other moms in the middle of the day and not feel like I should find a way to write about it.

I'd like to take up a hobby without thinking about how to get affiliate links for the products involved.

In other words, retire. Like actual, full, retirement.

Then after I've had time to fully embrace slow living, perhaps I'll feel a call to be "productive" again. Who knows?

And that leads me to my second big point — the life I love today won't be the life I love in 10 years.

You never finish creating the life you love

This is the second massive blind spot you find with those giving you the advice to change everything about your life in order to build a life you "don't want to escape."

It's this paradigm that once you build the perfect life, you'll then be content forever.

People don't typically stay passionate about one thing for their whole lives.

If you're older than, say 35, I bet you already understand this well. Maybe you're working a so-so job right now, using skills that you're pretty good at but that don't light you up anymore.

I bet when you were first studying that skill [engineering / health sciences / psychology / marketing] you absolutely loved it. You went to those lectures and leaned in to hear every morsel from the professor's mouth.

You were probably so excited to get to work in the morning when you were first out of college. You probably volunteered for projects and just yearned for bigger assignments and more responsibility.

It's hard to remember those days, isn't it?

Turns out maybe 10 or 20 years focusing on something is enough. You've changed. The field has changed. Maybe the real world and capitalism kind of make things suck in a way you didn't understand when you were just starting out.

So do you really think the answer to your malaise is to spend two years building up some online business monetizing your hobbies? You think after 10 years of doing that you won't be back in exactly the same spot of being just kind of … over it?

Once you realize that life has many seasons — and each one will take your breath away with how different it looks from two seasons before — then you realize there is no structure you can build that will last through all the seasons without major renovation.

We all need breaks even from things we passionately love

Our life's major structure that governs how we spend our days needs to get overhauled several times throughout our lives.

And also, no matter how beautiful our home is, we still need to get outside for a walk from time to time.

The perfect example to illustrate this: kids.

Sometimes [read: regularly and often] you just need a gods damned break.

This doesn't mean having kids was a bad choice for your life.

So the idea that once you create this magical life where you get to spend your days working on your passions then somehow you'll never need vacations or want to retire is bologna.

The human brain needs a rhythm that cycles through inspiration, working, and resting.

We need rhythms of receiving input, integrating ideas, producing output, and resting.

We need rhythms of expanding and retreating.

We also need to go on journeys of discover, learning, mastery, and then closing the chapter so we can start again on a new journey.

Life is about rhythms and seasons. In other words, you will always need to "escape."

So what should you do then?

Should you just accept a mediocre life and be a sad sack? (I realize this entire article seemed to be implying that, so thanks for sticking with it this long.)

Let me be clear — You absolutely can and should take control of your life to create a life you adore so much you yell it from the hills.

Just remember two things.

1) This is not something we achieve once. This balance is a constant pursuit, as we grow and change and as the world changes around us.

2) Monetizing your hobbies or passions may not be the best way to go about this.

So with those two things in mind, my advice is this:

Figure out financial security first

That way you're safe and have the head space to experience life's great wonders.

Focus on community

As soon as you've taken care of your minimum financial need, grow a wonderful circle of friends. Find a group you like to participate in (like a sports team, crafting club, yoga class, whatever). Make deep friendships.

This will give you greater satisfaction in life than building a business. It will help you live longer. It will help you find jobs and babysitters and all manner of practical things, as well.

If you're an entrepreneur at heart, then start some businesses!

If you're not, secure a steady job you don't mind doing, but leave it behind at the end of the day and get yourself a hobby or two.

Keep you options open

Expect to do some major life renovations 3 or 4 or 5 times.

Keep you LinkedIn profile up to date. Keep in touch with your network. Build up that "Fuck You" fund in your savings account. Always be learning new things that interest you. Keep day dreaming and looking around at what else there may be.

Create the life you love over and over, and enjoy escaping from it whenever you need to.