I am a professional reminder-er and permission granter who moonlights as an artist, author, professional speaker, and publisher of The Adultitis Fighter, which helps people create lives filled with adventure, meaning, and joy. I enjoy Star Wars, soft t-shirts, and brand new tubes of paint. My wife Kim and I homeschool our three weird kids and live in Wisconsin, where we eat way too many cheese curds.
Greetings from Sheboygan, where it's good to be home and enjoying summer in Wisconsin after a stretch of travel. Hello to all the new readers I met in Maine and Texas!
What's something you love to do?
Maybe it's traveling with your family. Making something with your own two hands. Or a weekly meeting with a friend to discuss the ups and downs of life over a cup of coffee.
How many trips do you have left? How many projects will you finish? How many more conversations will you have?
As for me, I love making art. I'm fifty years old. Young by some standards, ancient by others. I wonder, how many paintings are left in me?
Will I get them all out?
Fifty years is more than enough time to have discovered what cards I've been dealt, and which ones I wasn't. My shortcomings are too numerous to mention, but one unique gift I've been given is the ability to create paintings that are parables for the poor in spirit.
I consider the poor in spirit to be anyone burdened by the busyness and stresses of modern life, weighed down by darkness, discouragement, or sadness.
My paintings seem to be a ray of light that pierces that darkness. My stories are a glass of cold water for spirits thirsty for hope. They're usually a little silly, but I've come to see that sometimes a smile is a most holy thing, and a laugh can heal us in a way no medicine can. The whimsy in my work serves to catch attention long enough for the story behind it to penetrate the soul.
Time and again, I return to this combination of art and story as perhaps the most important contribution I have to make to the world.
At its best, it looks like this: I am on stage. My art is on a big screen behind me. The hearts of the audience are in my hands as I tell its story, which is also theirs. They smile, they nod, they laugh, they cry. At the end, they line up to buy a print or a book β filled with even more art and stories β as a reminder to take home to keep what happened in their heart alive. As I sign it, they tell me how much something I said mattered and made a difference.
It's a boon to my ego, I won't lie. It's much better than speaking to a room of indifferent people with their arms crossed. But the joy I feel in that moment is more than pride; it's the feeling of being fully alive and aligned with why I was made. Like the feeling a piano must have in the hands of a virtuoso playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, versus being abandoned in a corner somewhere, collecting dust and growing more out of tune with each passing day.
I want to spend as many of my remaining days in that zone as I can.
We're all running out of time.
But that's not our only enemy.
Hot on our heels is also frustration and fear.
I am often frustrated that I haven't been able to reach as many people as I'd imagined when I was younger. When I have the moments described above, when everything is clicking, I wonder, why isn't this more common? Am I doing something wrong? Missing something? Held back by my weaknesses?
I must fight the frustration that the work is not reaching more people than I wish it could. Otherwise, that frustration eventually grows into discouragement that can keep me from making any art at all.
Then there's the fear. I have a lingering anxiety that everything is about to come crashing down, and I'll lose my home, my studio, and the ability to make a living doing what I love. Fear tells me that the jig is up; that none of this should have lasted as long as it already has. It's just a matter of time before I'll be forced to finally get what I've been avoiding for 26 years: a real job.
This fear works against me, too. It convinces me to spend time elsewhere, presumably on more "marketable" and "lucrative" and "responsible" things that will at least keep this ship afloat, even if it does relegate the art making to more of a hobby or side hustle.
I'm going in for a colonoscopy next week, a routine rite of passage for a guy my age. Hopefully, I will receive an all-clear. Or maybe they'll find something that tells them I've got less than a year left to live.
Either way, I'm in a race against the clock.
How many paintings do I have left in me? Fifteen? Fifty? Five hundred?
I don't know.
I do know that frustration and fear are conspiring to prevent me from making as many as I could.
A recent trip sparked an idea for Kim and me that has quickly grown into one of the most exciting tinker projects we've ever pursued. It's a fresh way to get more of the paintings inside me out into the world and into lives that need more wonder, hope, and joy. Even better, it will give you a chance to support my work while fighting back against Adultitis in your own life. I can't wait to share more next week.
But what about you?
It's not just me racing against time; we all are.
What do you love to do? What are the activities that make you feel alive and in sync with the reason you were born?
How are frustration and fear keeping you from doing more of that?
The things we love to do, the ones that fire us up as they bring light to a dark world, rarely feel like work. The prospect of doing even more of that can feel too good to be true.
But as songwriter Jess Ray sings, "It may be too good to be understood, but it's not too good to be true."
We need to fight like hell to keep doing those things.
Because the forces of hell are fighting to keep us from doing them.
The world is dark.
Don't fall for the lie that it's selfish to shine your light.
Or underestimate how many places that light can reach.
Get out all your unmade paintings.
How can you spend more time this week doing the thing that most lights you up? Share your thoughts with me, join the conversation in The Wonderground, or spend time this week recording them in your journal.
Stay young and stay fun,
β
P.S.
Join us for a virtual Ice Cream Social! π¦ Save the date for Tuesday, June 30th at 7:45 pm CT and make plans to connect with fellow Adultitis Fighters and join us for a fun, casual hangout, live on Zoom. There will be shenanigans, prizes, (and a BIG announcement!) Showing up with ice cream is not required, but highly recommended!
NEW! Summer Mini*Print Collection
Check out the new set of summer-themed Mini*Prints only available until September 1, 2026.
On a mission to help people break free from Adultitis to build better lives, businesses, and teams.
I am a professional reminder-er and permission granter who moonlights as an artist, author, professional speaker, and publisher of The Adultitis Fighter, which helps people create lives filled with adventure, meaning, and joy. I enjoy Star Wars, soft t-shirts, and brand new tubes of paint. My wife Kim and I homeschool our three weird kids and live in Wisconsin, where we eat way too many cheese curds.
View online β’ Get this from a friend? Subscribe here! Shenanigating Since 2000 | 2026 Issue #21 π¦ Happy Sunday, Reader! Greetings from Sheboygan, where I'd like to talk about memories before I go off to make more. (See my P.S. for details.) Iβm the type of person whoβs going to ugly cry on the day of my kidsβ weddings. Iβve known since the day my first child was born. But even then, I knew Iβd rather cry in gratitude over all the cool memories we created than in regret over the things I...
View online β’ Get this from a friend? Subscribe here! Shenanigating Since 2000 | 2026 Issue #20 π§ Happy Sunday, Reader! Greetings from Sheboygan, where I've got some big news to share! But first, let me tell you about an interesting note I received. A young man sent me an email looking for advice. He recently graduated from the βcomfort blanket of college and chucked towards the open jaws of real life." He was hoping to receive guidance for young people in his situation to "make the world...
View online β’ Get this from a friend? Subscribe here! Shenanigating Since 2000 | 2026 Special Issue πΌ Happy Thursday, Reader! It's the season of Dads, Grads, and Summer, and the Lemonade Stand has you covered! Of course, we have t-shirts, socks, and prints for Dad, along with limited edition playing cards and even an original painting that might tickle his fancy if he's a Star Wars nerd. Two of my books β Penguins Can't Fly and Must Be Nice β are tailor-made for the graduates in your life....
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