More on the Epiphany, as promised
The solution: Quit talking about it and actually do it.

I could launch a commercial airliner with all the energy I've expended over the last two years babbling about:

How much I dislike my job

How I need to do something different with my life

How I need to exercise more/eat better/sleep more

How I need to find some source of actual inspiration.

It's been two years. The time to talk has passed. I'm tired of talking about it. You're tired of hearing about it.

So:

It's time. Self-improvement plan starts with ...

... finishing my bachelor's degree.

Somehow.

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I don't consider myself anybody's intellectual inferior. The one thing that distinguishes me from the rest of the population is that I have a fairly sharp mind. I'm very capable of advanced analytical and critical thinking, my written and verbal communication skills are well above average, and I can remember facts and place them in historical context. I can even do simple math fairly well.

I skated through high school doing the minimum required to maintain a grade-point average in the high 3s. My ACT score all those many years ago was 28; I hit something in the high 1100s on the SAT. Not off the charts, but enough to put me in the top 10 percent of college applicants back in 1986, and well out of proportion to the amount of effort I put into school.

Long before I started college, I lost interest in learning anything that wasn't directly related to print journalism. I quit college when I was 20 because I was offered a job in my field. It seemed pointless to waste time in school when I could be getting paid for the thing for which I was attending school in the first place. I figured, "Well, I can go back anytime."

Not long after that, I got married, and not long after that, I lucked into a series of better jobs. I moved around the country, we had a few kids, and the idea of finishing my education dropped completely off the radar screen. After all, I was doing what I had wanted to do since I was 12 years old, and making a pretty good living at it.

The lack of a degree didn't seem to be holding back my career the way I always feared it would. Journalism's funny like that; it's a profession that talks a lot about the importance of having an education but actually puts more of a premium on having real-world skills. I'll put your parchment from Columbia University against my ability to assemble a page in an attractive fashion, put the stories on the page in the proper order based on their relative importance, find a mistake that saves us from embarrassment and send the page to the press -- all in a time span of less than an hour.

Best I can tell, few other professional fields actually rate experience and skill above education.

I found myself four years ago working for the eighth-largest newspaper in the country, despite my lack of formal education. I excelled there, but it was there -- working what I thought was my dream job -- when I started to realize that I was getting bored with journalism in general. I wasn't quite ready to face up to this fact, however; I decided I was just getting fat and happy working a job where I didn't have to leave blood on the floor every night or work a ton of extra hours, and that to restore my love for journalism, I needed to restore some of the urgency. I'm funny like that.

So I put my career in reverse and came back to the Edge, in a position of responsibility, trying to rekindle the spark that fired my love for journalism. It isn't happening so far. I've been through a bunch of big stories that really should have gotten the adrenaline pumping. It's happened, but not in the consistent, predictable way it used to. I find myself facing sudden news events with dread rather than with energy and excitement.

I've been working in newspapers for almost 18 years. I have 30 more years I have to cover before I can call it quits with any degree of financial security. I'm not sure I want to do what I'm doing for 30 more years.

I don't, however, have a clear focus on what exactly I would do. However, it's probably in one of those fields that values formal education over experience. I'd like to think 18 years of busting my ass would mean something, but I doubt it does.

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I have many reasons to not consider going back to school:

I have a wife and three kids. In order for me to become formally educated, I'll basically have to remove myself from my family for a period of several years, except for brief periods between semesters. The Wife says that's OK; she's behind this idea, despite that sacrifice. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that.

I have enough debt; I'm only going to invest as much as I can afford in this. I didn't take out loans when I was 20; I'm not going to do so now. Nor do I want to plunder my children's college fund so I can go myself.

I don't plan on giving up my moderately high-pressure job, at least not immediately. I still need to get paid, and taking even a voluntary demotion would probably not be good for my fragile psyche. I will have to develop some much better time-management skills and self-discipline if I prove serious about this.

I'm 35 years old. Realistically, I'm looking at being 40 before I actually finish, given the constraints listed above. At that point, I'm going to be a 40-year-old white male who's no more attractive to potential employers.

It's very possible that I will find I'm no better suited to a classroom now than it was when I was 20. I would be very disappointed in myself if that was the case.

I have only one really good reason to do it:

To prove to myself that I can.

I don't know if that's the right reason. I'm figuring if I tell enough people, though, I'll be less likely to wuss out and not even try; it'll be that many more people who can call bullshit on me if I wuss out.

I'm looking for guidance here, folks. I'm a few days away from making up my mind. Give me a push or save me from myself.