Allow me to make an interpretation. For the last many years you've had a goal, which is to graduate, first from high school, and then college .. and given your age, perhaps also graduate work.
Graduating is an easily expressed, realizable goal. There's an entire infrastructure set up to help you reach that goal.
And now, you're done. You're the Apollo astronaut who's walked on the Moon, come back to Earth, but the parades are done, and now what? See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5870958/Apollo... :
> "What can make it hard for people like this is that they're so highly motivated and they wait so long for a mission," Prof. Palinkas told Time. "There can be a deep sense of loss once the goals have been accomplished, and there may be no adequate substitute."
If that's so, then my first and second substitutes were startup jobs, both of which lead me towards burnout. I then got involved with social dancing, where I had a big, though local impact. I'm now researching the early development of chemical information systems, from punched cards to 1990, because it interests me, even though there are only a few dozen people in the world who would care.
If you have meaningful impact on 10 people, will that be enough? Or do you need to affect the world? Does it require being better than other people at something? Once you've achieved that, then what? If you become the next Marie Curie and get two Nobel Prizes, each in different fields, will you feel like you need to go for a third?
At some point you have to decide that what you're doing is good enough. You need to learn where that is.
BTW, you contrast "comfortable life" with "meaningful impact". These are not necessarily opposites and you shouldn't think of it that way.
In order for me to do anything substantial I must do one thing and one thing only, whatever that thing may be. Everything else must come as secondary. That said I had difficulty finding the one thing I needed to do. To solve that problem I simply started doing more of what I was spending most of my time on which was computers. I started my own blog, began writing code, joined HN and lots of other stuff. I can safely say that the past half a year has been better than the rest of my life generally speaking.
That said it might be too early for me to judge this decision but so far things have worked out for the better. I tell you this so that you know that someone has been there and pulled himself out. In the years I was aimless I did everything from boxing and hard labor to philosophy and mathematics. However I feel a lot better now that I have decided to pursue computers.
You might want to check out Brene Brown's TED talk.
IME a need for courage is often indicative of a need for planning.
As for drive: My biggest drives come from a desire to be irrelevant to a problem. I get bored easily. The first six months at any job are almost invariably fantastic; learning new things. Then the new things are learned and it's time to apply what's essentially a skill to boring instances of a problem where you need just enough coms skill to get the relevant bits of info out of someone. You become a glorified parser. Which is a job for computers, not people.
I feel like the latter one is the sort of insight that is highly personal though. Not sure the answer for me is the same as the answer for you.
Many of us have a tendency to mentally skip right past the milestones we're accomplishing and only focus on the distant ones. Taking the time to sit and appreciate the accomplishments you're making right now will lead you to a greater feeling of contentment. You're reaching a HUGE goal today, you should be proud of that, and take some time to just enjoy that fact.
All that being said, this part of your post concerns me:
> ... I feel I have missed the boat and can't sum up the courage to pursue what I truly like.
..That's crap man. It sounds like you already know what you wanna do. In my experience it's better to chase your dreams and fail than never pursue them at all. Fear is not a good reason to abandon your passions. Kids to feed, responsibilities to take care of, illnesses to battle...these are good reasons. But fear of failure should not hold you back.
Don't find purpose in what you.
The projects that make you proud today will be embarrassing to your future self. Many illustrators I know hate even looking at their 6 months old drawings. Learning is 99% failing, so finding purpose on your successes is not a sustainable strategy toward well-being.
Self-worth (resonant frequency?) comes from why you do something.
Search for the core values that define your actions. Persistence, empathy, discipline... whatever you define as the leading factors of your life. Then stick with them. As long as you are true to yourself, that is, you stick to your why, you'll find self-worth.
Accept that your values may change over the years. Coherence is a self-defeating value.
> ...insatiable craving to create some meaningful impact.
Many people fall into depression because they are either changing the world (whatever that means) or doing nothing. Don't fall into this trap, find meaning in the little things. Keep in mind that 100% of the "overnight successes" you hear from the media bubble were ALWAYS X years in the making, where X >= 10.
> I'm torn between the desire to be practical (be risk averse, lead a comfortable life) and an insatiable craving to create some meaningful impact.
Don't let the media fool you, risk aversion and entrepreneurship are not mutually exclusive. Before you go solo, being employed in a field you're passionate about is going to give you 4 kinds of leverage:
– network / mentorship,
– First-hand experience,
– Financial safety net,
– (If your business is tied to your day work) future clients.
If your employer is not a douchebag, you can start your business on the side.
> I feel I have missed the boat
Bullshit. That's almost never the case. http://www.quora.com/I-am-in-my-late-20s-and-feel-I-have-was...
EDIT: I found it! I highly recommend you this essay: Does life end at 35? https://web.archive.org/web/20131101195131/http://kzhu.net/d...
decayishingly fab.