[nostrademons]

I think the point of the article is that that is your life, so embrace it. There's no sense struggling against or resenting it; instead, find the joy in what you have, so you can enjoy the moments you get.

A good pop-culture analogue is the movie Mr. Holland's Opus. Mr. Holland was a struggling but talented young musician; he dreamed of composing his magnum opus and leaving his mark on the world. But he has take a job teaching music to support his wife and young son, who turns out to be deaf. The job requires long hours and he finds himself lacking much time to connect with his son. 30 years later, he's laid off. His former students come back to stage a performance of his symphony in the high school auditorium.

The point is that the students were the opus. Not the music, which is thoroughly mediocre. The music was just the vehicle to bring the students together. A lot of critics wonder why symphony at the end isn't more impressive, it being Mr. Holland's life's work, but don't realize that that's the point of the movie. Your actual life's work is in the decisions you make, day in and day out, in response to the constraints that your life actually presents you, not some image that you may have formed based on a platonic ideal of no constraints.