This is the kind of thing you dwell on when you're single, sort of poor and have a lot of free time.

I don't remember it exactly but there was definitely a specific day when I woke up and realized my life was meaningless and I contribute nothing what-so-ever to society. I've never really bought into the premise that there's some cosmic narrative we're all taking part in or that anything happens for a reason other than causality. Basically, I'm the stereotypical Philosophy 101 existentialist: There's no fate, karma or luck and we are all responsible for creating meaning in our own lives. I've spent the last 15 or 20 years laboring under the suspicion that "life" in the broadest sense is meaningless but that's different from what I'm talking about.

It took a while to fully accept that life really is a big chaotic mess and, as individuals, we have very little actual control over that mess. It helped that I always had a goal to focus on - there was college for a while and relationships with the ladies. And when there weren't goals to focus on there were friends to hang out with and good times to be had. Then I woke up one day last year and realized I was 32 and had made almost no impression on the world. If I was suddenly blinked out of existence there would be no tangible effect outside of some friends and family who'd be upset for a while.

I'm unmarried, single, have no children, no savings, and very few personal belongings. I rent an apartment and mean absolutely nothing to the company I work for other than being a warm body to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. Outside of my friends and family I'm virtually invisible, socially and economically.

So that's where I'm at with my life right now. I've wasted the last 5 years waiting for opportunities that didn't exist to fall in my lap and settling for mediocrity. I am everything I don't like about other people.

I'd like to say it'd be easy to give up and resign myself to a life of what-ifs and self-pity but it wouldn't be. I've never felt pity for anyone who whines about circumstances they put themselves in and I'm not a big enough hypocrite to make an exception for myself. And I can't settle for this lifestyle anymore when I know there's a better life out there I'm not living. Every day I stay in this horrible, depressing city means a missed opportunity or experience somewhere else. I'm not ready to start dying when I haven't finished being born yet. (I'd love to take credit for that last sentence but I was totally paraphrasing Bob Dylan there.)