So you've graduated, you have the job, the home, the budget, and everything is going smoothly. However, you feel like you could be doing so much more. You're brimming with unspent energy and potential and what you're doing right now just isn't cutting it. Ask yourself: What have I always wanted to do?

When we find equilibrium within our lives, it is a natural next step to begin looking at rising higher from this solid foundation we've built for ourselves. If you feel this way, follow where that feeling leads you. Take up a hobby, change your career, start a band. Whatever you feel like doing and are capable of doing, go do it. This is living. Finding security, and then reaching outside of it.

Risk is proportional to the size of the project you end up pursuing. If you choose to follow a hobby, it might put you out a couple hundred dollars. If you choose to change your career, it could put you out of the life you've built. However there are ways of mitigating the risk. Get used supplies for your hobby. Make sure you don't quit your current job before you know you have the new one. It's simple, and all you need to do is think about the risks and figure out how to avoid them.

Never choose to not do something because of the potential loss, unless that loss is absolutely guaranteed and you have no way to recover from it. Too often have people stopped themselves from becoming great by denying their desires because they don't want to lose something. The problem with that mindset is that loss is inevitable. It is not ideal, but it will happen nonetheless. Better that it be in pursuit of your desires than due to resting in equilibrium. That way you're prepared for it as a result of an action you're taking, rather than blindsided by it as a result of any number of things. I suppose that's a way to mitigate your losses and the discomfort they can cause as well.

Don't judge your progress by the success of others. Their work took just as much dedication and hardship as yours is taking now. Instead, look at their work and their advice and use it to help yourself avoid some of the roadblocks they ran into along the way. There is always something to be learned from those we admire and respect in our field. On top of this, always take advice, but only follow it if it is objectively helpful. In turn, be open to passing your advice along to somebody else. This helps you think through your own work and also helps someone like you get further into their passion, continuing the cycle of goodwill.

Finally, never stop following your dreams. Go after their every aspect wholeheartedly and your work will show for it in it's beauty and the inspiration it gives to others. And even if you fail by some shred of a chance, at least you went after it like the beast of a human being you are.