This Should Be Epic

The title says it all.

Where to start, where to start, where to start.....how 'bout here?

It's painfully obvious that I don't have a fucking clue.

Now that that's stated, I can go on. It's amazing how much freedom that statement gives me. Just accepting the fact that I don't know it all, it allows me to move one. If you know me, you know that to a certain degree I have to know everything, or I'll at least give it a shot. Maybe it's not me, maybe it's a guy thing. Who knows?

It's past midnight on a school night, I should be asleep. But, I'm here, and so are you.

I was talking with a good friend (OK, maybe great friend) of mine, as I do often, about my next step. Which is never what I think it to be. 25-years-old. I've got the world ahead of me with a quarter of a century behind me. No strong footing to step on, to allow myself to climb higher up. Just sand. Quick sand, maybe.

Lately, I've fallen into the rut of waking up, cooking breakfast, setting the kids off to school, kissing the wife, and off to work I go.

Wait.....

I must've seen that on TV. But, I've fallen into the rut, anyway. Just without the kids or the wife. This whole concept of growing older, but not up, appeals to me. The problem is, I don't know if that's possible.

There seems to be a piece of the puzzle missing. One that I can't locate (hence the fact that it's missing). The problem is, I don't know what to look for. For as long as I can remember, I had this set plan of how my life was going to work out. Turns out, the only thing I had set planned was my career. Now, I wonder if that was just wishful thinking. Maybe I just assumed that once you hit a certain age and had a job, the rest would fall in line. No one said this would be easy. Bastards.

I was naive, I'm sure, in my presumptuous notion that a job = being grown up. That I had it all planned, and that was going to work.

Problem is, I don't like the plan that I had set forth for myself in 7th grade. Yeah, that's right, I'm doing what I've wanted to do since I was in 7th grade ('96-97). Great, right? Well, not so much anymore. I envy people that care so much, that are so passionate about what they want to do (solve world hunger, cure AIDS, etc.), yet, when I do what I do, I don't feel any good from it. Sure, it pays the bills (and I'm grateful for that) and I'm good at it (but I've got a lot to learn in this industry), but I don't know what kind of affect it has on the rest of the world.

We've all got a gift - whether we use it is up to us. I've got one. And sure it's nice and all, and I've shared it with the world once or twice (not my gum, but that is a gift that keeps on giving), there isn't much that can be made out of it. It's something I enjoy as a hobby, but in no way would I try to use it to support me (I'm not that good at it).

I talked with a couple of interns today, and told them "If you can find something that you can enjoy the dirty work, then go with it. Because, it'll only get better." Problem is, I can dish out advice like a barkeep and you're my only patron. My own medicine is harder to swallow. I'm not the type that thinks I deserve better (because I don't, and there's plenty of people out there who do, who deserve at the very least a fighting chance - I've got my cards, I'm playing my hand).

My puzzle doesn't seem to have a picture with it. So, not only am I missing a piece, but, I don't know where it's going to fit when I find it - into this picture that's only partially finished.