I'm coming at this whole business game from the opposite side. I don't really know this for sure, but I suspect the majority of people we consider "successful" in society - whether monetarily or in terms of their achievements (NOT fame, which is a fickle an unpredictable phenomenon) - got that way by doing well in school, proceeding along through university or as a junior member of some business, and had an intuitive knack for taking the right path and the inbuilt or instilled discipline to stay their course. Not that they were mindless machines with only a single interest, but they lived life in such a way that positioned them for success. They kept fairly regular sleeping hours, eating habits, hygiene rituals; they organized the spaces around them and in their mind well enough to keep track of important things (important as relating to their goals), they socialized normally, and so on. They probably didn't freebase a lot of crack, sleep all day and miss work or appointments, let trash pile up around them, sink into debt. They probably also didn't wander the world in search of meaning, or paint themselves into a philosophical corner by delving into life's underlying purpose, debunking all religions, finding flaws in every form of logic or science man has constructed, or read much existentialist literature or write confessional poetry. I'm also guessing they probably didn't listen to the Swans. So at some point an opportunity presented itself, and they were healthy enough physically and mentally and structured enough in their lifestyle to be positioned to seize it. One thing followed the next, and soon our young entrepreneur or author or researcher (or even athlete, if they were blessed with superior genes) has the ball rolling and picks up confidence, contacts, and clarity of purpose and blossoms into their successful old selves. That must be nice.

I feel like I'm approaching a successful end to my life - if there is to be one, and that is by no means certain - the other way, by exhausting all the dead ends and avoiding all the cliffs and bottomless pits and McDonald's combo meals and finally realizing that, while you don't have to sell your soul to the devil, and without sounding like Tony Robbins, you can find success at something, get your body healthy, get your mind right (pleasingly content rather than actively joyous, probably), and live the days you have on earth not endlessly miserable, but proud of your accomplishments, humble enough to put them in the context of the immensely diverse world and not become a snob about them or stop doing what it took to get you there, and occasionally feed your neighbor's pets when they go snowboarding in Tahoe - free of charge. You don't have to be a narrowminded sheep who may or may not have a midlife crisis when suddenly exposed to the absurdity of the universe. You can delve into all that heady, enticing, terrifying stuff first and get it out of the way, forming a personal philosophy no one else can give you that leads you back around to a conventional lifestyle, but one free of excess underlying feelings that "something is wrong; I just bought a new Escalade and beat Sanjay at golf by three strokes and I'm keeping the wife supplied with "surprise" roses and jewelry, and the kids have all three new consoles, but I just don't feel HAPPY. Is this all there is to life?) That is not something everyone goes through (many don't), but enough do that they lose their friends and the support of much of their family and begin to see therapists and psychiatrists about their woes. Best case: they get help and get back to not thinking about stuff that's out of bounds. Worst case: they have to learn to deal with REAL life from scratch, and many aren't up to the challenge at this advanced stage and resort to prescription pills and heavy drinking, their lives fall apart, and something unpleasant happens to them in the latter stages of their lives.

By solving my demons first I feel like, if I do get off that fence and get involved in the world, if I decide to do things that make me happy right then (Buddhist and Cognitive-Behavioral advice), and pay attention to simple things everyday instead of planning for a future that never arrives, I may actually succeed more profoundly than those who did so by default. I will have gained some measure of wisdom, the value of life, money, friends, family, health, responsibility. And I will keep my job or pursuit in perspective, no matter how vigorously I work at it; I will always enclose it in a box and build in time around it for balancing actions. I think ultimately this is the best way to go, but I say that with a huge caveat: I'm still living this life, so I've no true perspective, and I'm not at the moment successful by any means and even though I may be turning the corner, I've thought so before and it's not been the case. So I don't want to come across like Yoda on the subject of life strategy, I just want to convey some thoughts that bubbled up in my brain as I began to imagine myself back in the working world again. Maybe it doesn't have to be so horrible. Maybe you just need to get out of the river's main flow and hang out in an eddy for awhile, and take stock, and then jump back in with a purpose and with safeguards in place. Maybe some of us need to learn to suffer before we can learn to succeed? Or maybe suffering is the point itself. Pretty messed up if that were the case though.