I stand on the edge as it pulls me in.

I am young, naive and inexperienced. I am in the midst of internal struggle ignoring an external global revolution. Why do I continue to stand on the sidelines as technologists re-craft the world around me? Why am I not making a difference?

I am not intimidated, I am inspired. Failure is not real. I have bared witness to the downfall of virtual giants, yet all I can see is the perpetual light of a successful few. The light drives me.

All my life, I have known that I want to start an tech company. My desire is more appropriately described as an obsession rather than a dream. Its a truth that has not yet come into fruition. It’s a thought that is always hijacking my mind. Indirectly, even in ways I don’t fully understand, it controls me. It drives me. It drives me in the sense that I am a passenger, only able to influence my life’s path, not direct it.

I watch with child-like curiosity as the web simultaneously incubates mankind’s best, worst and most pure outlets. Its art, its beautiful, it frightening, It is as close to communicating directly mind to mind as humans have ever come. Physical Appearance, Age, Location, Religion, Ethnicity, all suddenly are irrelevant.

Upon this alien stage I prepare myself for my mission.

I think I know what I am doing. I confidently plan and study. I read the tech news. I watch the tech movies. I read the tech books to grow the tech state of mind. I run full speed as I study the blinding successes of tech leaders until one day, I realize that I know more about them than I do about the politicians that govern me. Still, I go on.

I teach myself how to code. I realize I taught myself bad habits and reteach myself what I thought I knew. I make scarifies to my body, friends and family. But eventually, after many years, I make breakthroughs.

I now have the skills, but do I have the self discipline? Mentally, am I in the right place? My ambitions are paradoxical. I am nagged by the inherit human flaw of greed yet my intentions and heart are virtuous and charitable.

One day it hits me. I have a legitimate chance. I am a small part of an enormous virtual world that supports me. A world that infallibly continues to shine. Can I harness this power? Do I even understand this power? Does anyone understand the power? We the members of this online world, bond because we are unsure. It is virtual but it is as natural as human faults.

So here I am, ready to take the plunge. Will this be like the half cooked websites that I have built before? Will my brainchild go viral? Will I create the Internet’s second killer app? What if I can’t scale? Will I even need to scale? I look over my plan for the thousandth time.

I know along with everyone else that everything I know is a fleeting perspective. A moment of genius that is quickly falling away.

I look over the edge. I see the familiar lights of the tech titans before me.

Yet this time something is different. The lights aren’t in focus. My perspective is skewed. I realize that like a giant mirror, the leaders I have idolized aren’t the source of the light, they are merely a reflection of something much brighter.

I step back and look again. There is no edge, no plunge, no fall. The secret has been within me all along. I dove in head first long ago.

The light isn’t a destination, its an action. Any action. What I want most in my life is not to have created something world changing, it is to be CREATING something, anything at all. I am doing, and I realize for the first time that I am already more fulfilled in my life than I ever could have imagined.

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Obviously, I am trying out something new for this post. Let me know what you think in the comments below.