"Growing up, my parents had a family business. I worked with them since forever. It was a rather small thing, we basically sold fruits and vegetables to other shops in Barcelona. Some of the other employees were immigrants and we became friends. They thought about the world differently than I did, because they had nowhere near the opportunities I had. The thing is, I realized then how lucky I was. My life was pretty easy. I never had to think about my basic needs, so I got to be creative. I got to think about the next step. I had the freedom to choose exactly what I wanted to do with my life and my time. I really didn't want to waste it. But now I also see that when we have too many choices it seems we have this weak mentality of thinking that, 'Oh, we want it all.' It's linked with the fear of missing out. I guess I'm especially 'millenialed' with opportunities. When I was younger I thought I had time to do everything. I think getting older is exactly the process of dealing with the idea that it's better if you focus on something than to keep dreaming about all the things you could do. Right now, one of my biggest struggles is that I work alone and I can't deliver at the rate I need to. So now I'm asking myself, should I give up some of my freedom and hire a few people? Or would that be giving up part of my identity? Is my goal to grow faster? Or is it the initial goal I had, which was to build something that would give me the freedom to work anywhere just doing my own thing and making enough money to get by? I don't know."
I went through a similar thing a couple years back. I had been very "freedom-focused", but once I reached it, I became very confused about what to do next. After spending a year on hedonism and another couple years on a sailboat, I eventually decided that it was worth trading away some of my freedoms in exchange for better roots and good people. So I (gradually) got an apartment, girlfriend, dog, cofounder, etc. I used to think I would hate to have these "restrictions", but I'm actually really enjoying it. I still think it's a little crazy that so many people accept them by default, instead of considering the trade-off, but that doesn't mean the trade-off is always bad ;).
If you're still around Barcelona and want to chat about it, I'd be interested to do so. I'm rob@robfitz.com