I had the whole get everything done as soon as possible attitude that yourself and so many others have had and do have. It was my driving source through college and through all of my ratings. The thing that kept me going was what the next step would be and how I'd "get ahead of the game." I was never happy with being where I was supposed to be at, I always needed to be ahead. This all pushed me to graduate at 20 and get hired at 21.

I, on the other hand, flight instructed for over a year (which still isn't a very long time compared to what it's been). I've always told people that the first two or three hundred hours or so of doing that scared the hell out of me. Not because my students were "trying to kill me" or because I had to live on near poverty-level pay. But instead because it allowed me to realize how much stuff I didn't know. It's one thing to pass your multi-engine commercial checkride by meeting the PTS standards that the examiner chooses to evaluate you on. It's a completely different thing to have to teach every possible PTS area to a student not only on the level to pass a checkride, but to the level of being a safe and proficient pilot.

The times I spent in school and flight instructing were some of the best times of my life... but now I've made it to my goal of becoming an airline pilot. And now that I'm here the inevitable has set in: "now what?" Don't get me wrong, I love my job and the flying I get to do, but my life is not the perfection I told myself for so long it'd be. I've now realized that the "stepping stones" I regarded as the necessary steps to get where I wanted to be were the times I enjoyed more than any other.

You're young, enjoy the time when you've got it. Don't be in a huge hurry to spend 10 nights a month in your own bed or not have the seniority to bid Christmas or your own birthday off. Thanksgiving just isn't the same when your dinner is Pizza Hut delivered to your hotel room in North Dakota.