So its midnight and I should be getting to bed if I want to try to maintain some sort of normal sleep pattern, but when the urge to write comes, it is not wise to let it go to waste.  And here I am.

I just read an article.  And I mean just.  Maybe thirty minutes ago, tops.  So my thoughts may be convoluted and not quite there yet, but here goes nothing.

This article was in Relevant magazine. (someone with better English skills remind me, are magazine titles italicized or underlined?  Or maybe neither.  I forget.  Italicized it is.)  It was an article about "How to prepare for your dream job without quitting your day job."  Or something like that.  Quotes are not exact.  Too late to go and look them up. Sleep beckons.

Anywho... this article discussed the challenges that we face when we think about, dream about, or go for, our dream job, our One Thing.  The article ended with the point that we often let the voices talk us out of doing what we dream of doing.  Now, everyone has voices, most have negative voices.  Some people listen to these voices, some don't.  So I'm not saying I don't have these voices.  I'm not even saying that I don't listen to these voices, because sometimes these voices win.  Especially the voice that says, "Why quit a job you are good at to pursue something you could fail at?  Why throw success away for a dream?"  What I'm saying about these particular voices is that I'm not quite there yet.  Meaning, these voices are not what keeps me from doing what I dream of doing.

The point previous to this one talked about fear.  The fear of failure, of not being good enough, of not being ready. (Also, this article said Ready is a myth.  No one is ever really ready because in order to do something that you've never done before you, well, have to do something you've never done.  Practice makes perfect but buying a guitar is the first step of practicing.  And that guitar may end up being a waste of money because it sits gathering dust in your room.  OR, you may end up learning that one song that you've been dying to learn and find yourself dancing with the guitar around the room singing slightly off key but you feel like you're in a rock band.  But you never know until that beautiful Mitchell is yours. Worth every penny.  Moving on  now.)

Aren't you all lucky?  I'm too tired to actually think through what I say before I type and so I'm writing like I think.  It makes me afraid to ever look back at any of my college papers knowing how many of them were written this late at night.  And back to the train of thought. Where were we?  Ah, yes, Fear.  Fear of failure, mostly.  And again, this is something I do face. I'm afraid of going for that One Thing and ending up flat on my face in the mud as people point and laugh.  But again, this is not what is holding me back. One day it might, but I haven't reached that door, that wall yet.

I realized, reading this article, that the thing holding me back is not simple fear.  Fear is involved, but not yet fear of failure.  I think I'm afraid I'll go for that One Thing and pursue it and get so invested in it that its pretty darn tough to back out and then realize that I don't really want to be that at all.  The thing that is holding me back is that I don't know what the One Thing actually is for me.  I'm 24 years old and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. (As another side note, is it weird that I sometimes still refer to people at the "next stage in life" (read that, married with kids) as "adults," even if they aren't even older than me?)  I think that if I knew without a shadow of a doubt what my One Thing was, I'd give up anything to get it.  I think I just want someone to tell me, because despite the fact that a certain friend of mine insists that she loves the fact that I'm decisive, when it comes to this, I'm not decisive at all.  I'm still a little lost.

Maybe its just like that guitar.  I spent hard earned money on that guitar and on picks, strings, tuners, stands, lessons and countless other things.  Maybe if I go for it, I'll end up letting it gather dust and "not-quite dirty enough for the hamper, not clean enough for the hanger" clothes.  Or maybe I'll end up a rock star on stage.  Even if the songs are cheesy, the stage tiny, and the audience third graders.

I think I'll take that chance.