Here's something I wish I knew when I was 20. Life is a dance. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes life leads. When I was a kid, I thought either you were in charge

Here's something I wish I knew when I was 20. Life is a dance. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes life leads. When I was a kid, I thought either you were in charge or you were a putz. After all, all of my heroes were in complete charge of their life. Isn't that the goal? Don't people always say "You're either telling your own story or helping somebody else tell theirs?" But then as I got older I realized that the important thing in this dance is to figure out whether you are supposed to be listening and adapting or leading. Out of work and need money? You should be listening. Where are the jobs? How do I need to adapt to be able to eat? Have some free time in the evenings? Then you should be leading. What can I do right now to help my own prospects in five years' time? A lot of times we just give up and take what we get. We spend our free time plugged into a video game or the web. That's wrong. But it's just as wrong to think that you should be in charge all of the time, working hard, living large, and controlling your own destiny. That's another kind of giving up -- picturing some fantasy life that will never exist and then beating ourselves up because we don't live there. It ain't that easy. The dream is important. It's all there is. But you gotta know how to dream. There is a difference between dreaming and fantasy. So you got kicked in the teeth. Welcome to the big leagues, kid! Get good enough at getting kicked in the teeth and you might end up being a decent person one day. Having said that, you also might be depressed. If so, you should find somebody to talk to. Thinking of killing yourself is not very healthy. The thing isn't that life doesn't suck. It's that life sucks and we learn to live in it and love it anyway. Sometimes that can be tough to do. Talking about it helps. A lot.