Running on empty at 4:30 am

I've always enjoyed the song "Running on Empty" by Jackson Brown but tonight as I sit in front of my work computer staring blankly at a game of Spider Solitaire, the song seems to have a little more meaning to it. I think we've all spent time reflecting on the path we've taken in life, wondering how little turns here or there could have led us in a different direction. I know that when I graduated college I had absolutely no intent of falling into the traps I saw the career chasers always falling into. Working 60 hours a week for a company they don't care about and a boss they despise, all to be able to afford the things our consumer society tells them they need to be happy. Well I won't say I've fallen into one yet but these days, working rotating shifts and once again losing all contact with the real world, I'm certainly feeling the painful tug of the snare around my ankle.

Owning "things" has never been bait for me. My downfall is an extreme hesitancy to follow the path of the corporate man. Though many opportunities lie in that direction, I'm always afraid of the shackles that may come with them. It's been my greatest fear since college to fall into a career rut, only to emerge middle-aged and wondering where the hell the last 20 years of my life went. And somehow, even with that fear at the forefront of my mind, I find myself in that rut anyway. Perhaps I've been wrong all along. Perhaps the path of the corporate man is the right one, waking up every day to my Bose Wave Radio, drinking expensive coffee, spending 45 minutes in my Lincoln Navigator in bumper to bumper traffic, working for 10 stressful hours, driving through traffic again to return to my oversized 3,000 square foot suburban home, arriving in time to pop a frozen pizza into the microwave and watch my favorite crime drama, running for a half hour on my $2,000 treadmill, going to bed, and then waking up and doing it all over again the next day... On second thought naaaah. I guess it's just nights like this when I'm running on empty that those roads never travelled seem more tempting.