To play devil’s advocate to this mindset: life isn’t an optimization game. When you’re being nibbled away at by maggots or a pile of ashes, you will receive no trophy for how you optimized your life in a particular order.

You don’t need to perfect one thing to do something else. Nor does getting your ducks in a row on one thing guarantee you’ll be better off in another.

Sometimes you hurl yourself into the fire and you get burned. Sometimes you hurl yourself into the fire and you figure out everything else because you did it.

I know several once lost and now successful adults who found their drive and focus in the moment they held their first child in their arms. Others who, like you said, are still lost.

If you want to have kids, have kids. You’ll figure it out. Sometimes you won’t. Don’t sit around and wait for the optimal circumstance and opportunity. If there is an opportunity, take it. It may never come again.