Welcome to the suck.

With my 31st birthday coming up soon, I am going through my anual "self-evaluation" and once again I have found myself coming up wanting. I have a loving wife (and more often than not, she is my saving grace). However, I have a job that I hate, live in a neighborhood that I hate, dont ever have enough money to afford the things I want (or in some cases, need), and for some reason I havent taken my health seriously (seriously, I get winded going up my stairs).

It's not all bad. Like I said, I love my wife. We play with an awesome guild in WoW ("World of Warcraft" for those not in the know). Our car is still running (for now). And as much as I hate my job, I at least have a steady paycheck.

My biggest problem right now is that I feel like we are just "getting by". Where's the drive? Where's the passion? Where's the motivation to be more than the sum of our parts?

In an ideal world, I would have enough money to open a pub. Brewing my own hard cider, and serving my apple cider pork ribs. There would be a little stage for live music. It would be the kind of place where you could kill and afternoon with your friends, and not feel like you have to be "somewhere else". This is not, however, an ideal world.

I live in the world, where day in and day out I have to grasp at reasons to get out of bed. To find the motivation to get told for 8 hours at a time, that I dont know what I'm talking about, and that I have the worst service ever. I live in the world, where I make "alright" money, however my paycheck alone is not enough to cover the bills. I live in the world where I know I need new shoes, and the car needs new shocks, but I just dont have the money to do anything about it. I live in the world of constant fear that I am going to wake up to find that the power has been shut off, the cell phones are disabled, or there is an eviction notice on the front door.

I live in the world of the corporate lower-class. I hold a mid level job at a multi-billion dollar company, and I can barely afford the Ramen it takes to not go hungry.

And I dont know what to do about it.