Skips Beats Races

By all accounts and objective methods of measuring, my life is great. I live in a ridiculous apartment. I have great friends, who complain that they haven’t seen me enough lately. I have a girl who I see, who likes to kiss me and hold me close as she falls asleep with her head in the crook of my neck. I attend a great law school. I work for a human rights organization. I have an associate in Africa who I am working with to do something special. I have food, heat, clothes, shoes, bags, books, a lap top, printer and a TV. What more could a guy want?

I want. I want more.

I can’t easily express what I want, but I know that part of what I want is to prove to myself that I exist. I want to prove to myself that I don’t simply move around the world, but that I can touch the world and see it change. I want to be something. I want to do something. I want to be noticed—by myself first, and by others later. I want to realize my own power and potential.

I have great ambition, and no motivation. It makes for a diabolical combination. I feel this internal push to work extremely hard, to apply myself and to break down any barriers and walls I come across by sheer determination and perseverance. I also feel the world collapsing in on me, crashing down around me and flooding that ambition with the futility of life and the system.

I don’t want to question the system, I want to answer it. I want to walk into an office where I know I want to work and demand employment—tell them that I deserve to work there and prove it. I want to write op-ed’s for news articles about how we as a society need to change the discussion—we need to talk about the physical problems that coming generations instead of the financial problems that might face future generations (e.g. infrastructural maintenance and replacement rather than the infinite deficit and national debt). I want to raise issues that matter and improve peoples lives by standing up, speaking out and being a credible voice of rational, reasonable progress.

If most people lived my life, they would pinch themselves every morning and pray nothing changes. I pinch myself that I am here, thank everything and every one that have helped me get here, and then spend the rest of the day unsatisfied. I do not believe I am entitled to this life. I do not believe I know all of the answers. I do not believe that the world is a good enough place. I do believe it can be.

Every day, I want. I want more.