If the current economic outlook read like a weather forecast, it seems there would be nothing to report but big black rain clouds, lightning, and perhaps hail the size of sheep. The economy is bad. Worse than its been in my lifetime, is what they tell me. Truthfully, I didn’t start following the economy, with its scrolling red and green numbers, until a few years ago. Now I’m 27, ready to live my life, and it’s all too real. I am ready to find out what this American Dream is all about, and the only forecast I see is more clouds …Great.

Recently I found myself lying on the floor of my bedroom; face down at two in the morning, immobilized by stress and panic. Fear consumed me, paralyzing my mind in a state of revolving doubt and worry. The floor felt so nice, safe. Also since I had vacuumed recently, it even felt somewhat clean. The floor is constant; it doesn’t change like the stocks do. It doesn’t suddenly decide to become toxic and make everyone stand in line at the unemployment office like mortgage loans do. The floor cannot have other parts of itself hidden in offshore accounts that no one knows about until it’s too late, until the IRS reveals its secret. The floor is finite, confined within walls; a simple immovable object one can rely on to provide support underfoot.

I work at a restaurant. I’m a writer. I work at a restaurant so that I can write. I turned down law school three years ago to pursue writing professionally. This May I would have been walking across a stage, accepting my diploma, or whatever they hand out for law degrees, and walking off into a future of…well…who knows.

The restaurant where I work is failing. Has failed. It has for all intents and purposes closed. We still open the doors and a few customers will trickle in, but life, as we knew it has ceased to exist. The restaurant is on life support and the plug is about to be yanked from the wall, thus the panic. It seems that I have no hope on the horizon, no prospects lined up. Nothing but the distant hope of an unemployment check and a dream I am working toward that seems to be getting more difficult to achieve. The days that followed my visit with the floor were full of self-loathing and pity. How can it be so hard to follow a dream, to pursue that which you believe is the only thing worth living for?

When I was in college we were required to attend chapel three times a week. On one particular day, I was sitting in the bleachers half-listening to the guest speakers on stage. The man had the requisite acoustic guitar, sandals, and a smiling wife. She was a painter. He strummed and sang while she showed slides of her paintings. They droned on, in and out of my consciousnesses, until he said something about finding our ‘passion’. It was one of those rare instances when I found that over used evangelical buzzword actually meant something to me. The speaker said: “Our goal as Christians should be to find that place in the world where our greatest passion meets the worlds deepest need.” Amen.

If you are reading this, you are blessed, and in a position that few people in the rest of the world find themselves in. You are in a prime position, poised on the precipice of greatness with a multitude of resources at your fingertips and the endless, immovable promises of God at your back. You are equipped (though you may not know it) to do something great. You are able to truly DO something great. Forget mere existence, shrinking into safety, into a passive lifestyle of survival in this incredibly hard economic time. Look inside yourself and find what it is you really want to do and then go about finding a way to make it happen. What better time than now? In an ideal world everyone would be pursuing and actively living out his or her “passions”, doing whatever it is they are great at doing. Even if only one person succeeds, the world is better for it. I realized again, for the 100th time in the last 100 days, in between another 100 battles with depression and doubt, that I am lucky to even have the opportunity to try to do something I love. I have before me the opportunity to find that place where my greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.

If you are reading this you have an obligation, and a choice. Make the decision to try and attempt greatness. Choose to ignore the culture of fear we are inundated by and take a step of faith. The world can be so much better. We can make it so much better, but not through fear. I know I will find the floor again soon, but I would rather spend 100 sleepless nights at the foot of my bed, doubting what I have gotten myself into, doubting my flimsy faith I put in God’s promises, rather than merely surviving this life and falling fast asleep with the aid of a few pills. Take a step in faith, and who knows, if you do find yourself on the floor, it may even motivate you to vacuum more often than once a year.