Honey Bun Symbology

We’ve discussed the importance of personal myths and understanding them. They operate in the background, at the relatively unconscious level of personality. They impact who we are, how we show up, what we think, how we interpret situations, and several other aspects of our lives.

But we can also assign meaning to things without fully realizing it.

A picture. A car. A song. A person. Really, just about anything.

Take the lowly Honey Bun.

For me, it represents a very specific time in my life… and a kind of psychological despair.

What do I mean?

Right after I graduated high school, a friend and I took a road trip to Kansas City to visit his family. It was a great little adventure. His grandparents let us stay for free in an apartment above his grandfather’s violin workshop.

And his grandfather, as it turned out, was a world-renowned craftsman. He made violins, violas, cellos, and upright basses by hand. Fascinating guy.

The Honey Bun connection begins when his grandfather also “hired” us to repaint the front of his shop. It was an older brownstone-style building, and he wanted the wood around the entrance and windows sanded down and repainted.

He paid us each the equivalent of about $1,000 for the work.

Cha-ching!!

It took us about three and a half days, and honestly… we enjoyed it.

We had a boombox radio playing music the whole time. The building stayed mostly shaded, so we weren’t baking in the summer heat. We could visibly see the place improving as we worked. And before we knew it, we had paint-stained clothes and cold cash in our hands.

At the time, we both worked at Target making barely above minimum wage. In today’s dollars, maybe the equivalent of $8 an hour. We worked around 15–20 hours per week during the school year, which translated into maybe $125 a week after taxes.

So yes… the entrepreneurship bug bit me early.

I remember thinking:

“If we can paint one house per week for the rest of the summer, we’ll be rolling in the dough!”

(Compared to Target anyway.)

I’ll save the rest of the painting business story for another day, but yes… we actually started getting jobs. And before long, we were in a bit over our heads.

But the money? It was definitely better.

At the time, I was technically heading into my sophomore year of junior college, although I’d only completed four classes my first year.

And I was tired of living at home under my parents’ rules.

So I decided to get an apartment.

I first asked my painting-business friend if he wanted to split one, but he wisely wanted to save money. (He was more mature than I was back then… and probably still is.)

I asked a couple of other friends, but they all had different plans.

So naturally, I did the most financially responsible thing possible:

I signed a one-year lease on a beautiful, brand-new one-bedroom apartment by myself.

And furnished it.

And honestly?

It was awesome.

I loved that apartment. I loved having my own place. I had a great girlfriend at the time, work was rolling in, I spent afternoons at the pool… life felt pretty fantastic.

Then summer ended.

My friend left for college and suddenly the business was entirely on me.

And almost immediately, the painting jobs dried up.

I tried to keep it going. I made flyers, went door to door through neighborhoods within a few miles of my apartment, and attempted to drum up work.

Nothing.

No interest.
No jobs.
No money.

And I had quit Target that summer, too.

Yikes.

Somewhere along the way, I remembered that when I was around 12 or 13 years old, I’d had a paper route.

So I thought:

“Perfect. I’ll get a morning paper route for steady cash flow while I rebuild the painting business.”

Well… I got one.

Then they offered me a second route.

Then a third.

And eventually an afternoon route, too.

The general manager liked me, and I kept saying yes because the painting work still wasn’t coming in.

The money improved… but not enough to comfortably support the apartment and everything else I’d signed up for.

And the schedule was relentless.

I was up around 3:00am every morning and delivering papers until roughly 7am. Sundays were especially brutal because all four routes had full delivery loads.

There were no real days off unless another carrier covered for you.

That’s where the Honey Bun enters the story.

Every morning after finishing my routes, I’d stop at a convenience store across the street from my apartment complex.

And every morning, I’d buy the same thing:

A Honey Bun and a chocolate milk.

That was my “reward.”

I’d crawl back into bed, eat my Honey Bun, drink my chocolate milk, watch television, and fall asleep.

Then around 10am, I’d wake up anxious.

Panicking a bit.
Overwhelmed.
Running out of money.
Not sure what I was doing with my life.

All these years later, I still love a good Honey Bun.

Especially the iced ones.

But now they’re loaded with meaning.

First, yes, I still find them delicious… but I also instantly associate them with guilt and impulsiveness. Like some tiny rebellion against good judgment.

They also represent my first real taste of entrepreneurial failure.

And honestly, I think part of me still carries that experience around. It probably shaped why I’ve never fully loved the idea of “building a business” in the traditional sense.

The Honey Bun also represents the never-ending daily grind.

Paper routes don’t care how you feel. They show up every single morning whether you’re tired, discouraged, broke, sick, or existentially unraveling.

And maybe most of all, the Honey Bun represented a small attempt to comfort myself.

A little nibble of relief.
A tiny dopamine hit.
A brief escape from feeling lost.

Self-medication at its finest.

My guess is you probably have some object, food, song, place, or “thing” in your own life like this.

Something symbolic that instantly transports you back to a specific psychological chapter of your life.

Maybe it was tied to a relationship.
A difficult job.
A business you started.
A period of loneliness or uncertainty.

And there’s actually a lot to learn from reflecting on those symbols and what they still carry emotionally.

For me, this reflection ties into something I mentioned yesterday about potentially taking on another “One Hit Wonder” challenge.

But… careful I must be, says my inner Yoda.

This daily blog writing and posting has echoes of that first paper route.

At first, the paper route was manageable. Even enjoyable in some strange way.

But I didn’t really have a stopping point.
No clear boundary.
No real plan for sustainability.

At least with these daily blog posts, I’ve defined it as a one-year challenge.

(Although… knowing me… there’s a non-zero chance I just keep going.)

Still, I’m trying to slow my roll a bit before signing up for another massive daily commitment.

Because apparently my natural instinct is to accidentally create elaborate systems of self-imposed labor.

And besides…

I’m far too committed to my health and fitness these days to start having a daily Honey Bun again…