It’s not a decade ago anymore. John thinks to himself, “You’re an adult with a job and a family . . . and a life that is tied to alarm clocks and cell phones and computers. What happened to that idealistic young person who thought he would make a mark on the world? Is he lost?”

Slowly John unwinds himself from the sheets, trying not to wake his wife of ten years. He shuffles to the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet without bothering to turn on the light. The reflection of a man he hardly knows anymore stares back at him as he brushes his teeth. Gray early-morning light creeps through the frosted window and matches the streaks of gray that have appeared at his temples. He doesn’t want to get dressed. He doesn’t want to go to work. He doesn’t want to dutifully fulfill every little, insignificant obligation he has today. John is tired of going through the motions and not getting anywhere. His journey through life has become uninteresting. The view is always the same.

What happened to that energized teenager driving toward opportunity? Is there any way John can bring him back? Right now his life is defined by scribbled appointments on a calendar, and it seems like his only accomplishment is successfully checking each activity off the list.

What happened?

Does your life look a lot like John’s? Maybe it is entirely different. Maybe you are a twenty-three-year-old woman who still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. You have few family or financial obligations. Still, you empathize with John. You know what it’s like to feel stuck. You wonder where and when you lost speed and let your dreams be filed in the back of a drawer and stored in the basement of your thoughts.

The point is that life does not have to be a predictable, flat road to nowhere. You can change your choices and change your entire outlook. You can retrieve that motivation you experienced in more idealistic times and channel it toward new opportunities. A brilliant, shining you is eager to break free and fulfill your dreams, whether you are twenty years old or seventy. It’s time to nurture that spark and let it catch fire.