Wow am I in a rotten mood today. I mean rotten. Stinking angry. Festering, slithering, bubbling, puss-ridden vitriol. It’s a chronic grumpiness that I can’t shake.

I mean, I am in a mood where a Girl Scout could ask me to buy cookies and I’d yell at her for perpetuating an Imperialistic socialist society in which the cute Girl Scout sells overpriced cookies tinged with a searing does of social guilt. (I don’t think that really. I think Thin Mints should have won a Nobel Prize in Cookistrey.)

I’m not really sure of the source of my anger. And anger isn’t exactly the right word. It’s more frustration. I think I’m spinning my wheels. I’ve allowed myself to become complacent professionally. I attained a certain level, got happy with it and stayed there. I have almost everything I’ve ever wanted. Good job, good family, great music, fast computer. I’m happy in that sense. But it isn’t enough. There’s something missing.

Now I’m looking at all the dreams I had that I didn’t follow through on. And they’re sitting there, dusty. And it ain’t pixie dust. My dreams aren’t sparkling anymore. They’ve become a burden.

So know I need to decide. Do I cast aside the dreams or go after them full throttle?

I don’t know. That’s a tough decision. The things I want to do will take time. A lot of time. Blood, sweat and tears. A lot of tears. I wasn’t ready for the toil when I came up with my dreams, am I ready for them now that I have a full-fledged family backing me?

I don’t know. That’s the funny thing about dreams. They can dissipate like smoke. Poof! They’re gone in an instant. They have a freshness date on them and if you don’t act, they become this albatross tied to your neck that weighs you down. Unrealized dreams.

I guess what I have to ask myself is what I want to be when I grow up. Do I know that? Am I treading water or am I going to swim out deeper?

There’s a recognized concept that some dead guy came up with. “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do.” In this concept I have to have confidence in my dreams and go after them with full gusto. No one built castles in the sky by thinking about it. They had to do it. The library at Alexandria wasn’t built overnight by some guy lounging on his ass watching Survivor. And it wasn’t destroyed by some guy drinking eight cups of coffee proclaiming, “We should knock that sucker down.”

People have dreams. They follow them or they cast them aside for new dreams. My quest now is to evaluate my dreams.

I’m not the type to give up on dreams and live life in an insular comfort based on my own complacency. Neither is my wife nor my friends. However, I am heading in that direction lately.

I think GRAND act bland. I need a kick in the pants.

Look at the people I admire. Brian Wilson, Walt Disney, John Lasseter, Kurt Vonnegut. These are men who had dreams and desires and followed them. One was destroyed and reborn from his dreams. Two built amazing companies known for innovation and creativity. The other is a fantastic writer who discovered himself after years of wallowing professionally.

I should be learning something here. But I’m not.

Walt Disney used to tell his people, “Don’t tell me how it can’t be done. I already know that. Tell me how it can be done.” Maybe that’s how I should look at my life. Dream the impossible dream, so to speak.

Maybe I will. Maybe I should get off my fat Irish duff and plug away at my dreams.

Wouldn’t that be a great legacy to leave my kids? “One thing you can say about Daddy, he always followed his dreams. Even when there was no hope of success, he had to try.” It’s not a bad legacy. And it says something. It says, “When you believe in your dreams, there is nothing you can’t do. Except fly, because that’s against the law of physics.”

Okay. So, maybe I’ll do it. I need to sit down and just start following the path I believe I should be on. Now, to decide on which fork.

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." –Walt Disney