My biggest fear

This is going to be the most brutally honest post I'll ever write. I've been thinking a lot in the past several days and weeks (particularly today) about what I really want to accomplish with my life. This is nothing new - the reason I left the comfort of my career is that I didn't feel I could attain what I wanted to in corporate America. Sure, I could make a comfy salary and get married and have kids and live a "good" life, but I feel called to so much more.

Since sometime back in college, I knew that I wanted to devote my life to positively impacting the world. But what's the best way to do that? I've seriously considered everything from the priesthood to the peace corps and everything in between. In the 9-5 it seemed impossible to me, so I quit. I see all the potential in the entrepreneurial world - I see what guys like Bill Gates and Bono can accomplish after they have immense success (I mean, holy crap have you guys seen Red, this is the greatest business idea ever). From the outside, those guys seemed to follow the build-yourself-first-and-then-help-others path, which is awesome for them. Then again, people can spend their entire life trying to build themselves and never get to the help others part.

And it's certainly possible to start a world-changing business or non-profit without being rich, but it seems like to do that one would need another income stream. The things that I want to do that I think will really change the world will require 1)People and 2)Money and probably won't make money...and that's the point, I want 100% of the resources of my non-profit to go towards helping the hungry eat, the homeless sleep in comfort, or the sick get medicine.

Again, that leads me to believe that I need my own stream of income - hence SportsLizard, iPrioritize, and to a lesser extent, SEO Playbook and the consulting jobs that come along with it. I see the success of my collective entrepreneurial efforts giving me the money, time, and experience (important also) necessary to pursue "my true calling." I *think* that I can get to a point in the next few years (certainly before I'm 30) where I'm able to devote close to 50% of my time towards things that sole purpose is to improve the world...and my income will be taken care of by my ventures.

I don't know if this is unrealistic or not. I do know that this plan has become clearer and clearer as time has moved on. I also know that I should be able to live pretty comfortably next year (comfort is relative, and I'm talking compared to this year) and at that point I should start devoting some of my time (10-15%) on doing things solely to change the world for the better, and go from there. Through no doing of my own I've been blessed with a lot in my life, and I think it would be a travesty to spend all of my entrepreneurial time building things that only serve my wallet.

If you asked me whether I would rather be married with kids and have a beautiful house and retire nice, or be able to help all of those people that don't know where they are going to sleep tonight or get their next meal, I would choose the latter. Even if it means I'd struggle financially and never come close to getting married or starting a family. It's just how I'm wired.

My biggest fear is never getting the chance to do those things. I fear dying at 25 or 26, not because I fear death, but because I won't have had the chance to accomplish the things that I think I can - to really change the world. I would be all talk and no action. That would suck, that's what I fear.