As far as being an average American goes, I'm a pretty big failure.

I'm 33 years old and I have no desire to own a home, having children seems like a colossal waste of time that would interfere with being selfish and irresponsible and my ideal job would involve blowing things up or travelling around the country eating embarrassing amounts of junk food. I feel like I should be ashamed of these admissions but I'm not. Honestly, the trappings of the typical American adult don't entice me at all.

A house is an expensive anchor that ties you to one location for years - maybe even your entire life. Children, while undeniably adorable at first, quickly turn into rotten teenagers and then adults who stick you in a rest home when you become a burden and sell all your things in a garage sale after you die. As far as work goes, Hell is years spent at a soul destroying job in order to pay off your mortgage and finance your child's binge drinking and useless English degree at Generic State University. These are all responsibilities I neither need nor want.

You could make the argument that I'm simply immature and selfish but I like to think I'm really an enlightened free spirit - loosed from the bonds of biological imperatives like procreation and out of step with traditional Midwestern values. In reality neither of those situations is correct but I'm good at romanticized rationalizations and you're a big 'ol grumpopotamus.

The truth is that I view the nuclear family as a Jenga tower made of interdependent responsibilities which will collapse if just one block is removed: If I don't have kids I don't really need a house for anything. If I don't have a house I'm not tied down to one geographic location so I can lead a more nomadic life. With no kids and no house I have fewer financial responsibilities so I'm free to pursue a career that may be less rewarding financially but offers more personal fulfillment. Or I can work at an awful job that pays a lot and have money to do whatever I want whenever I want. And on and on.

Actually, when I read through that last paragraph it does sound like I'm trying to justify my selfish impulses. Plus, I don't have a special lady to impregnate so I'm getting way ahead of myself anyway. For the time being I think I should stick with my most immediate priorities: Getting less doughy, moving and finding a good job. All that other adult crap can wait.

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.)