Doug Rushkoff thought of the day (paraphrased):

"Between around 20 and 25, there's a change that I see in people. Either you decide what you want your role in life to be, and you start dressing for it, and acting like it, and becoming it...
Or you see that you're about to do that, and you decide you'd rather stay alive."

It's hard to stay alive. To stay conscious. To stay critical. To have a sense of humor, a sense of irony, a sense of injustice. It hurts; it leaves you sore and battered and raw. It would hurt less to give up and shut down and become just another gear.

But how could it ever not be worth it?