"When do I get mine?"

As I walked out of work on a recent Friday evening, a long-time high school buddy who I hear from sporadically called me in a state of panic.

"There’s something missing,” he said, desperation hurrying his speech. “What am I not doing?” he asked, verbally unfurling a white flag.

My afflicted friend explained that his “checklist to success” was almost completely filled with pencil marks: A good job that provides financial security? Check. Successfully breaking dependencies from the parents? Done. Volunteer work for the greater good? Nearly every Saturday morning. Consistent gym attendance? Yep, more fit than ever.

Yet despite the cross-offs, satisfaction eluded him at that moment. Discouragement invaded a usually self-assured twentysomething.

I wanted to reply with an answer to end all questions. I wanted to assure him that permanent contentment was just around the corner. I wanted to confidently shrug off his worries and tell him to burn the white flag.

But I couldn’t, because I was burdened by the same questions.

“When do I get mine?” he asked. “When does playing by the rules start paying off?”

Despite my own question marks, I channeled my inner Rocky and crafted a motivational monologue full of clichés and hope-filled crescendos. The phone call ended on a high note, but my friend’s questions rattled around in my mind for a while: When do I get mine?

After many iPod-less jogs and daydreams, I’ve realized that my friend is asking the wrong question. Framing it as a “when” assumes that at some point, a neat package will arrive in his mailbox that extinguishes all doubt, all worries, all of the “suck” that life spews out.

That package doesn’t exist. There is no definitive “arrival time.” Although it might comfort us to think that fulfillment can be boiled down to completing the steps of a formula, it’s never that clear-cut.

And maybe that’s a good thing. If there were such a package of indisputable answers, what would we do after we read them? Quit taking risks? Shut ourselves off from all potential fun? Or would we reach personal nirvana?

I don’t know. I never will know for sure. And I’m OK with that.

But I’m not going to sit on my stoop waiting for some package. There’s too much out there to do.