Category: Fate
We met at a wedding. I know. It’s a cliché to meet someone at a wedding. Some even crash weddings to pick up those someones.
Not us though. Meeting a guy was, at best, on the periphery of her radar, if it was even on the screen. The bride told me there would be hardly any single girls there. So I turned my focus to enjoying Hawaii since it was my first time there.
My table at the wedding reception was the loud, drunk table. You know that table. Every wedding has one. Its guests are a raucous, rowdy bunch, roaring with alcohol. Elderly family members look over in disgust. Yup, that was us.
After a round or two of tequila shots, we crowded the bar for one more. We were all friends of the bride, so she joined us too. “How many should I get?” I asked.
A friend glanced around the group. “About seven, I think.”
I turned to the bartender and ordered seven tequila shots. As he handed me the shot glasses and I handed them over to my friends. However, there were only six of us. I was left with two shots in my hands.
That’s when I turned around and saw her. A cute smile and pretty freckles in an adorable black & white dress. And without a drink in her hands.
“Want to do a shot with us?” I asked her. I didn’t want the extra shot to go to waste. It was the polite thing to do. Plus, she was cute. “We’re doing a shot with the bride.”
“Sure,” she smiled and took the glass. I smiled back.
“To the bride!” someone shouted. We all raised our glasses and poured the burning tequila down our throats. Like liquid lava down our gullets, searing down our chests. I stifled a cough.
“Thanks,” she said as I took her empty glass.
“I’m Mike, by the way,” I told her.
“I’m Mia.”
I smiled. She smiled. And that’s how we first met.
I’m not sure when it first hit me. The desire to become an entrepreneur, I mean. All I know is, it has something to do with a pom-pom ball, some felt, and a pair of rolly eyeballs.
I blame it all on my Dad.
My Dad set up the foundation when I was in grade school. He came home from work one evening with a bunch of fuzzy pom-pom balls, sheets of felt, fabric glue, scissors, and a bag of plastic rolly eyeballs, top hats, baseball caps, and other assorted accessories.
The goal for my brother and I was to create a community of pom-pom people.
First, we cut out pairs of feet with the felt. Then we glued these feet to the pom-pom balls. Next, we glued a pair of eyes on each pom-pom. Finally, we individualized each one with accessories. Some received top hats. Some got baseball caps. A few had baseball caps on backwards because they were the bad-asses.
I have no idea how my Dad came by this idea. Maybe from a television show? Maybe from a magazine article? I wonder.
The next day, my Dad took these pom-pom people to work and sold them to his coworkers. He sold every single one.
Inspired by the demand, our family spent the next few weeks creating more pom-pom communities. We diversified and created all kinds of original accessories. My brother gave one a shield and sword-toothpick. I gave another a painter’s palette with swabs of paint (pieces of different colored fabric) and a paint brush-toothpick.
One of our favorites was a black pom-pom with a toothpick we colored red and a black piece of felt around his back — a lightsaber and cape. Get it? Pom-pom Darth Vader! Ah, to be young and imaginative.
Demand remained steady for a month or so. Production kept up with demand steadily. In other words, coworkers kept buying them and we kept making them.
He gave us portions of the money. Some of it was allotted to bank accounts my parents opened for us. Though we were too young to use any of that money, they instilled the virtue of saving money even back then. The remaining cash was used to buy toys and comic books.
Then we saturated the market. Demand fell. We had to scale production back. The unsold pom-pom people remained at my Dad’s desk until he sold every last one in the trailing months. My brother and I kept a few choice favorites back home. I still have a pom-pom painter.
The next time I engaged in an entrepreneurial activity was college, where I used my meager training in graphic and web design to do some freelance work. I did a few small jobs here and there, getting paid what I thought was a mountain of money, though I realize now it was pennies compared to what professional freelancers made.
Having a taste of freelance work was but a sip of being self-employed, a common baby step towards entrepreneurship. The desire to be a business owner always stuck in my peripheral though — not just to be self-employed, but to be a business owner. Not as a freelancer, but as a leader who manages a company of employees doing something fun, profitable, and worthwhile.
Fast forward to 2007, way after the collapse of the Wild West Web. I finally decided to take a gulp, turn my head, and stare straight at entrepreneurship. I flirted with a few ideas, started a few projects, and did a few cool things with some friends, all of which further whet my appetite.
A year ago, I finally founded a formal business with two other entrepreneurs.
It’s still a young company, but it is already profitable, which is saying a lot in the current economic recession. Years of learning, preparing, and planning are beginning to pay off.
I just moved to a new apartment too. While unpacking, I found my old pom pom painter. A grand grin grew on my face. Life was coming full circle. That pom pom guy is sitting on my laptop right now as I write this. Once I finish, I’m going back to work (there is no such thing as a weekend for an entrepreneur).
What a journey it has been, from a pom pom ball to a small business owner. Thanks Dad! I can’t wait to buy my kids a bag of (metaphorical) pom pom balls too.
Did you know that the Earth was almost struck by an asteroid this week? Unless you follow science news closely, you may have missed it.
The asteroid, designated 2009 DD45, is less than a third of a football field in diameter (approximately 20-30 yards). After watching movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, that seems pretty small, doesn’t it? It’s no Texas-sized Global Killer like in Armageddon.
The impact of 2009 DD45 would still have been disastrous. “The force of multi-megaton nuclear blast,” wrote one reporter. Striking a city would have leveled it and killed millions. Striking the ocean would have caused a horrible tsunami that devastated coastlines.
Yikes!
To be fair, our planet is struck by asteroids all the time. Most burn up in the atmosphere. Few make it to the ground in the size of basketballs, baseballs, or smaller.
However, in 1908 a large asteroid struck Siberia, near the Tunguska River, with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. It is believed that this asteroid may have been a few tens of meters in diameter.
Scary stuff. While it doesn’t do any good to sit here worrying about asteroid impacts, the idea of one certainly puts life into perspective.
What if the world were to end tomorrow?
It is a question commonly asked by thinkers and philosophers, usually as a way to guide our actions throughout our current life.
The question is invariably followed by the assertion that every day should be lived like it is one’s last. However, doing that is unrealistic. If the world really were to end tomorrow, most people would be out there, having raging orgies, eating fatty foods, or generally doing all sorts of selfish, indulgent activities they normally wouldn’t do. Perhaps people really shouldn’t live each day like it is their last.
Another answer is to live life without regrets. Unfortunately, that is not a satisfactory answer for many. Living without regrets means there will be a tomorrow with which to feel regret. If the world ended tomorrow, that would be moot.
I believe the answer is somewhere in between each of these. The contentment of living each day like it is your last should be in sync with having no regrets because you’ve done so with honor and integrity. Every time you go to sleep, you should do so with a smile and a clear conscience, no matter your religious and spiritual beliefs.
Why should you live life that way? How about spiritual satisfaction? Honorable livelihood? Or that well-worn cliché: A life of virtue is its own reward.
It may not sound easy to live life this way, but once you do, you will find it easy to. You will not only be ready for the end of the world, but you will be ready for potential judgment in the afterlife too, if such a thing exists.
The end of the world may not be that far off either. Asteroid 99942 Apophis is due to pass by our planet in 2029, most probably missing us. Then it will circle around and come near us again in 2036. The second visit may not be a miss.
99942 Apophis is somewhere between 210 to 330 meters wide – much bigger than 2009 DD45, but fortunately much smaller than Texas. An impact with this asteroid would cause untold destruction around its unlucky impact point.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t cause an end to the world. Pardon my earlier exaggeration. It would most certainly cause an end for some people though. Scientists have already been working on solutions though, a la Deep Impact. From solar sails to adding mass (to alter its trajectory), solutions are being modeled and perfected. With roughly twenty-seven years to plan and build, hopefully they will come up with a viable answer in time.
Let’s go back to the end-of-the-world question again. An assumption it makes is that we wouldn’t have much time to prepare for the world’s end. It would just be upon us suddenly, as a real-life Global Killer probably would do.
Does it surprise you that you didn’t hear about 2009 DD45 until just recently? Such an event ought to make a fair bit of news, right? Sure, the media could have been sitting quietly on this story for months, resisting the urge to break it for the sake of the public.
I’ll wait while you ROFL.
No, clearly the media would do no such thing, whether or not it would be in the public’s best interest. The simple truth is that scientists didn’t know about 2009 DD45 until two days before its apparent impact. Prolific asteroid hunter Robert McNaught of Siding Spring Observatory in Australia spotted it when it was only 1.5 million miles away. Then Timothy Spahr of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics determined that it wouldn’t be a threat within an hour of its discovery.
In other words, they spotted it then quickly realized it wasn’t going to cause untold destruction. The media probably picked up the story and figured it wasn’t important enough to turn into a major headline.
Perhaps that is a good thing. Who knows how the public would have reacted if they misinterpreted the news as the actual end of the world? Maybe with raging orgies, eating fatty foods, or all sorts of selfish, indulgent activities. Or maybe they would be at peace, having already lived each day like it was their last, with honor, integrity, and contentment. Which would you rather do?
(I know, I know… orgy vs honorable contentment. I really haven’t made a convincing argument, have I?)
“How would you rate this year for you?” my friend asked. “From a scale of one to five: one being the worst, five being the best.”
I scratched my chin and cleared my throat. Then I gave my answer.
“Five,” I replied.
He sat back in his seat. “Five? The best? Really?” He clutched his espresso and regarded me through the hot rising vapors.
I nodded. “I would give 2008 a five because this was a year of new starts and new challenges. Despite the poor economy and layoffs, there’s been a lot of new hope too. And I don’t just mean a new presidency. For me, personally, there’ve been a lot of positives.”
I picked up my mocha and took a sip. He echoed with a sip of espresso. For a brief moment, we savored our drinks and pondered the question. Then he put his cup down and waited for me to continue. I cleared my throat again.
“First of all, I started a new relationship. It wasn’t always easy, but it’s been going really well. I’m totally happy and excited about it. Heck, I kind of feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have met her. And it happened all because of chance. Or perhaps fate. That in itself could give 2008 a high score.”
He nodded. “True, you’ve been very lucky in the romance department.”
“Career-wise, starting a new business has been exciting as hell too. Frustrating as hell sometimes, but mostly exciting. I’ve made some mistakes, but they’re great lessons learned. I actually look forward to, and expect to make many mistakes. Each one is going to make us that much stronger, especially in this economy. While other people are scared off by such risks, we’re facing them head-on and still making a profit.”
“That’s fantastic! Not many people can do what you’re doing.”
“And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m not struggling or scared at all. There are days when I wake up wondering if this is going to be sustainable in the long run. But that’s what I wanted to worry about when I quit my full-time job. I wanted the fear of having no steady paycheck to propel me forward. Having no cushion is a tremendous motivator for making immediate profits, let me tell you.”
He shook his head. “I’ll bet.”
“Investment-wise, not all of them have panned out. My portfolio has taken a dive, like most other people. But I still have a few hopeful investments out there. The market will swing back up again too. While there’s been lots of stress around my investments, overall, I’m pleased with my positions.”
“That’s very optimistic of you. A lot of people feel quite differently about that.”
I shrugged. “Yea, I know. Perhaps my rating for this year isn’t just due to the excitement of these new starts and challenges. It’s also due to my general outlook on life. I tend to be optimistic about a lot of things. For me, mistakes don’t get me down as much as others, because I see them as ways to strengthen myself. And where others see problems, I see opportunities. Ultimately, I think life is all about what you make of it. You can choose to be pessimistic about it, or optimistic about it. You can choose to be pushed around and react to the world, or push back and shape the world.” I stared at my mocha. “I’m beginning to sound full of myself, aren’t I?”
He smiled. “I think your view is refreshing. It’s a very hopeful view. In these dark days, it’s nice to see something with some light in their eyes.”
I quietly took a slow sip, savoring the sweet mocha on my tongue. “I’m not saying it’s easy to always stay positive. But once I push my mind into that direction, it’s really easy to continue with that attitude. It’s like a muscle; the more I think this way, the easier it is to see all the possibilities out there. The more I work it, the stronger it becomes. Hmmm, I’m not sure if that analogy totally works.”
He took another sip, then held his cup and paused for a moment. “You know what you should do? You should write about this.”
I smirked. “How do you know I wasn’t already going to?”
He chuckled. “You saw an opportunity for a story and you went for it. Very opportunistic of you.”
We laughed and savored the last few drops of our drinks. Then we put our cups down for a reflective moment. I cleared my throat. “So how would you rate this year?”
I was moving down to Los Angeles when I got Ray’s call. “Hey Mike, want to work for Yahoo?”
I rolled up my window. “What? Did you say Yahoo?” The flat plains of Central California blurred past me as I sped down the I-5.
“Yea. We’re looking to hire some developers. Can you come in for an interview?”
“When? Now?”
“Yea, as soon as you can. We need to hire some developers very soon.”
I looked down at my odometer. “Okay. But, um, I’m on my way to LA.”
“LA?”
“Yea. I was going to move down there. Where is Yahoo located?”
“Sunnyvale, in Silicon Valley.” Ray paused. “You don’t want to live in the Bay Area anymore?”
“Oh, no no no.” I shook my head. “I love the Bay Area. It’s just that, with the dot-bomb and our company going out of business and all the lay-offs, I didn’t think there would be anyone hiring in Silicon Valley anymore.”
“Well, there is. Yahoo. Are you…”
“Wow. Yea. I’d totally be interested!”
“Good!” Ray sounded happier. “Looks like I called you just in time!”
“You did!” I watched my odometer as I slowed down to 70mph. (Don’t ask how fast I was going originally.) “If you called a few days later, I might have settled down in LA.”
“That would have been bad. Can you come in for an interview next Monday?”
I looked at my watch. “Next Monday? That’s just in two days.”
“Yea. Is that too soon?”
“Heck no, I’ll come back up for Yahoo!”
“Great!” I could almost hear Ray nodding. “I’ll have HR contact you to set up the interview.”
“Awesome! Thanks man!”
“Thank you! See you next Monday.”
And that’s how I started my 5+ career at Yahoo!—just in the nick of time. As quickly as I sped down the I-5. Fate’s funny that way.
“We all have a purpose here. It’s up to us to discover what it is.”
I leaned back to catch more of the conversation. The somber cafe music gave their subject a serious tone, like they were discussing the fate of the world.
“There are a lot of people in the world,” said a younger voice. “How can they all have a purpose?”
“It’s beyond our comprehension to understand how everyone’s fates are intertwined, but they are,” answered the older voice. The speaker had a confident, yet quiet tone. He sounded almost like a college professor. “On a global scale, we’re all interconnected. You might have been fated to be on a delayed flight, then catch a later taxi, causing another passenger to wait at the taxi stand, where he met the woman of his dreams and had a child who will invent a cheap alternative fuel source.”
The younger man laughed. “That’s too neat and packaged. Too… Hollywood. How can fate be so orderly like that?”
“Life already contains a high level of order. Even within chaos, there is highly structured order. That’s classic chaos theory.”
“But to think that life is that way; that we’re all pre-destined to do something. Doesn’t that mean we don’t have free will?”
The old man laughed. “We have free will. Life, and fate, doesn’t prescribe exact instructions. It only sets up a general direction. There are multiple paths you can take. They may all take you to the same destination sooner or later, but you get to choose the journey.”
“But that’s still not true free will.”
The old man paused. I took a sip of my coffee and waited for his retort. “You could also argue that genetics and society don’t give us true free will either. What’s stopping you from jumping onto the table and screaming right now? It’s not a socially-accepted action, that’s why. And why do you have your inquisitive nature? Your parents are academics and also have an inquisitive nature. So are you exhibiting true free will right now?”
This time, the young man paused. “Okay, I can see why arguing about true free will can be a complicated discussion.” He was silent again. I could almost hear his thoughts grinding in his head. “So if there is a grand plan for all of us, that means there’s also a God. Do you believe in God too?”
“There is…” the old man cleared his throat. “There is a higher power that we can’t comprehend. Whether it’s a single entity with a distinct personality and consciousness, or just a general cosmic intelligence, I don’t know. But yes, something had to have given rise to the high level of order we have in this world.”
“Do you believe there’s an afterlife?”
“Yes. After we pass away, our souls move on to another plane of existence, another dimension, if you will. Science has already theoretically proven that there are other dimensions. It’s possible that one of these could be where souls without bodies exist.”
“See, I don’t know if I can believe in all that. I don’t think there’s a God or any kind of higher power. I think when you die, you just die.”
“I see. And what about a purpose in life?”
“There is no pre-defined purpose in life. I think we can easily rationalize life to have a purpose. It’s easy to look back in one’s past and see correlations and relationships between various events. Human beings are great pattern matchers, after all.” The young man paused and the old man sat patiently. “I think religion is just a way for people to create a purpose for their lives. And it’s a great thing, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not the truth.”
“I don’t intend to change your mind right now, nor would I even want to. In fact, in my belief, there’s a reason you feel this way.”
“So you believe…” the young man spoke slowly, as if he was carefully choosing his words. “You believe that there’s a reason for this conversation right now?”
“Yes.” I could almost hear the old man smile. “Perhaps this conversation will sit in your mind and cause you to change something you’re going to do, altering the course of history and bringing you closer to your fate. Or perhaps… someone else will overhear this conversation, share it with his friends, and maybe one of them will be influenced by it.”
I quickly sat up. For a moment, I sat there, frozen. They changed subjects as I finished typing the last words of their conversation. Then I saved the document and decided to share it.
. . .
Do you believe in fate?
“You ever wonder about those missed chances?”
I scratched my chin. “What do you mean? Like Missed Connections on Craigslist?”
“No, no,” Tim shook his head. “I mean, like, you meet someone briefly, but you don’t really follow through. What if that person was The One for you? And now you lost your chance?”
“Hmm… Are you thinking of a specific incident here? Or just in general?”
“Just in general.” He looked off in a distance with a pause. “Well, so when I’ve gone clubbing, I’ll get all drunk and start talking to random chicks, you know? What if one of them could have been The One, or at least, a good friend?”
I took a deep breath to take in the question. Tim ordered another beer.
“I think it’s all Fate. If you weren’t meant to connect with that person, then it’s not going to happen. It wasn’t meant to be.”
Tim took two large gulps. “Yea. But what if, you know? What if that chick was The One?”
“How are you to ever know? The grass always seems greener on the other side, right? I think you’re idealizing a missed connection too much.”
“Idealizing?”
“Yea. It’s easy to think about What Ifs about everything that’s ever happened to you. If you look back into your past right now, I’m sure you can pick out a dozen things that could have turned out differently.”
“Shit, yea. Let’s see, there was that receptionist chick. And that boring but cute chick. And that other chick. Oh man, my life is a mess! It could have been so much better! Thanks man, now I’m all depressed!”
I laughed and snorted up some beer. “Ha! Funny, dude.”
“Heh heh. I know what you mean though. It’s easy to look back on some random chick and wonder if she could have been The One, but you will never really know, right?”
“Right. And if you believe in Fate, if she really was The One, then you would have connected.”
“Yea…” We both took several gulps in silence.
“Man, that was a deep topic,” Tim added. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay.” I looked around the bar. “Let’s talk about chicks.”
“Sweet.”
And we wondered no more.
. . .
You ever wonder about those missed connections?
As I fell towards the highway, I realized I was going to die. “Shit, I’m going to die today,” where my actual thoughts, I believe.
Facing the realization of one’s own death can have a powerful effect. Everything changes. One’s view on life changes. And how can it not? Surviving one’s death means a second chance on life.
For me, this happened during my second sky dive. I had chosen to do an Accelerated Free Fall. In this method, two instructors jumped with me—one on each side. They helped me maintain a proper free fall position. When I pulled the parachute cord, they let go and fell away. The rest of the ride down was solo.
Unfortunately, the instructors had miscalculated our landing zone. We left the plane too late and overshot our jump window. A sudden change in winds also added to the fire.
Sucks, huh? This is definitely the worst place to be miscalculating anything.
As I descended, I noticed I wasn’t heading towards the landing zone in airfield. I was being blown to the side. With my novice knowledge of parachute operations, I wasn’t successful in maneuvering back on course.
When you reach 1000 feet in altitude, you’re supposed to look down and know exactly where you want to land. This gives you enough time and momentum to steer towards your target.
At 1500 feet, I surveyed the ground beneath me. A long and hard concrete highway with lots of traffic. A two-story farm house. A parked bus. Power lines alongside the highway. Tall trees everywhere. A nice and flat farm in a distance. And a small patch of grass besides the highway.
There wasn’t much I could safely land on. The highway seemed the most likely choice. A highway landing would mean death.
I weighed my options.
“Shit, I’m going to die today,” I told myself. It was a sobering thought. “Do I want to die though? I’m ready for it. I’ve had a good life. I don’t have many regrets.”
“But… I don’t really want to die. Not yet, not today. I might land with a broken body, but I’d rather do that than die.”
“So what should I land on?”
“The farm? Can’t. Too far away.”
“The trees? Nah. Way too painful. If I landed in the trees, branches could get caught under my arms, or, worse—between my legs. And if that happened, my limbs could get dislocated or torn off.”
“The bus? The house? No way. If I rolled off those structures, I’d crash into the ground and get hurt from a second impact.”
“The highway and power lines? Well, that would mean either a flat or an extra-crispy death. No thank you.”
By 1000 feet, I gambled on the small patch of grass.
When you land, you’re supposed to turn into the wind to slow your decent. Unfortunately, I needed all of my momentum to just reach the patch. So without slowing down, I fell towards the earth at a rate of 10-15 mph.
The only thoughts now were how I could minimize bone breakage. “I’m going to break something in my body,” I accepted.
“Should I land on my legs and break them both? Or maybe on my side and break just an arm and a leg? Which side should I sacrifice? Left? Right?”
Then the moment of truth came. I opted to life my legs up and land on my ass and back, hoping that the increased surface would minimize the impact’s severity. This was a technique that beginners sometimes use, though usually at a slower speed.
My parachute grazed the power lines. For a second, I imagined getting caught on them. As long as I didn’t touch the ground, I would be fine. But if I made ground contact, I would be fried.
A quick turn of my parachute toggle and I veered away.
Then I struck the ground.
The back of my spine screamed out in pain. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I slid along the grass for a few feet. The parachute fell over me. I lay there for several minutes, feeling extreme pain from my lower back and legs.
Extreme pain. And it radiated throughout my limbs.
After a few minutes, I tried wiggled my toes. They wiggled. “Whew.”
Then I reached down and felt my legs. Nothing major seemed wrong there either. No bones sticking out of the skin, no blood.
Then I touched my tailbone.
“Ouch!”
I slowly sat up and checked the rest of my clothes for blood. Fortunately, I didn’t see any.
A few moments later, the pain dulled enough so that I could stand up and survey the area. I was arm’s length away from the highway. From where I lay, I could reach out and touch concrete.
Cars were honking at me. One car pulled over and the kind driver offered a ride back to the landing zone. “You know, you missed the airfield,” he said to me. Wise man.
Ryan White was his name. I’ll never forget the guy. Not the guy with AIDS; he just happened to have the same name. This Ryan had a rusty old red pick-up truck. His wife and kid were in the front; the kid stared at me with wide astonished eyes. Probably his first time seeing a Chinese guy fall from the sky. I gathered up my chute and jumped into the back.
As we drove away, I marveled at what just happened. I had gone through dozens of scenarios of death, intense pain, and broken bones. And here I was, now sitting in a pick-up truck, alive and intact. Astonishing.
I later showed my landing site to a friend, an experienced sky diver. The patch of grass was small. Even experienced divers would have a hard time aiming for such a small target, he told me.
According to him, I would have certainly broken my legs had I landed on the house, bus, or trees. And a crash landing on the highway would have meant certain death.
And I was only an arm’s length away from it. From death.
The realization and acceptance of possible death has profoundly changed the way I view life. I could be dead right now. But instead, I have this second chance at life.
I used to be terrified of public speaking. I still sort of am, but now, I just think back to how I could be dead right now, and the fear melts away a little. New experiences are a lot more exciting now. Problems aren’t really problems, just challenging opportunities. Change is fun and exhilarating. Life is fun and exhilarating.
Ever play those computer role playing games? It was great how you could save your progress so when you died, you didn’t have to start all over again. That’s what all of this is for me. I loaded up a saved game and am playing it right now.
I even adopted a new motto after the incident: It’s better to try and fail at something, than to walk away and regret never having tried it at all.
After all, I don’t want to die (again) with any regrets.
. . .
Have you ever had a near-death experience?
Everyone wonders about his or her purpose in life. Why am I here? What should I do with my life? What is my destiny?
I’m not the type of person to sit and wait for an answer. So I’ve given myself an answer. I can sum it up in a sentence:
I want to fundamentally improve the world. (Hey, we gotta aim high, right?)
There are two ways to do this: through policy and through education. Policy changes have an immediate but sometimes superficial impact. Educational changes have a fundamental impact, but can take a long, long time.
Politics is not a realm I want to enter. And like the song says, children are our future.
I want to start a privately-funded public school that uses a cooperation-based teaching system, as opposed to today’s competitive-based teaching system, to educate a new generation of society not just in academic intelligent, but in emotional & social intelligence as well.
Teachers will be highly trained in traditional academics, child psychology, and other advanced teaching methods. They will be very well paid, so that the teaching profession will be a highly desired and respected career.
Initially, the school will target disadvantaged inner-city youth. Once the educational model is proven, I want it to spread to other cities and states. Perhaps even countries too.
The model will be constantly evaluated and evolved. Training will be constantly provided to the teachers. This sort of evolutionary feedback loop is common in many types of entities (businesses, technologies, even biological organisms). Continuous evolution will keep the educational model modern, relevant, and effective for generations to come.
American schools still use a model that prepares our children for factory work. Volumes have been written about the need for a more innovative & creative workforce, so I won’t go into it here, except to say that academic smarts isn’t enough to operate in today’s global marketplace; emotional & social intelligence are also equally important, if not more so.
That is just the US-centric incentive for such this educational model. Hopefully, schools around the world will adopt such fundamental educational goals also. As a species, the human race needs to. I currently have little knowledge about the educational models in countries outside of the US, so they may already have teaching systems like this.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in this vision. A number of schools with progressive and/or alternate educational models have already appeared in America. I’m trying to collect information about each, so if you know of one, please let me know.
There is no profit incentive here. No power incentive either. The educational model will be publically available to any school or organization that wants to adopt it. There’s no need for a centralized governing body, though an independent quality & accountability association may be necessary.
Being privately-funded hopefully removes potentially negative political & financial influences on these schools. But a number of problems are immediately obvious:
How do I pay these very well paid teachers?
How do I train these teachers?
How do I privately fund it?
What exactly does this educational model look like?
How would the current educational institution react to these schools?
How would parents react to these schools?
How would quality & accountability be ensured?
And many, many more.
I don’t have the answers yet. There’s a lot more research to do. I’ll need lots of help too. Experienced teachers. Child psychologists. School principals who’ve had to deal with school boards. Anyone with the desire to help change the world.
Perhaps I won’t realistically accomplish all of this in my lifetime. That’s okay. At the very least, I want to lay the groundwork for such a school. Perhaps a successor will continue with the torch.
Or perhaps such a school already exists and all I need to do is support & help it grow. Who knows. There’s still much research to do.
But on my deathbed, at least I’ll know that I tried to fundamentally improve the world.
. . .
Want to help, or have any information that can help me build this school?
“Do people really live happily ever after?” asked the eleven year-old. He stared up at me with wide, eager eyes.
“Well…” I paused. I sucked in a breath. “That’s a big question.”
He continued to gaze at me, unwavering. I knew I had to give him an answer. It’s rare nowadays for the young to seek advice from their elders, so I couldn’t let him down.
I cleared my throat. “For many people, yes, they do live happily ever after. And if you believe enough in it, it will happen to you too.”
That’s too fairy-tale, I thought to myself. Need to give him some real world advice.
“Happiness is just a state of mind. There are people who will never be happy, no matter how much they have or how much they accomplish. For them, they never truly live happily ever after because their own minds are never satisfied. They are forever filled with an emptiness that leads them into a hollow, sad existence.”
His cheeks trembled. A frown formed. Oops, too pessimistic. Need to be more optimistic.
“Then there are people who are happy with what they have. They know how to appreciate the little things. You’ll see them on the streets, smiling and laughing and full of energy. They’ve had troubles in their lives too, but they know how to rebound from their troubles and enjoy the ups and downs of life.”
The frown subsided. His brow began to wrinkle and he raised an eyebrow. Damn, I’m losing him.
“You see, life isn’t always good. And it isn’t always bad. There are always ups and downs, good times and bad times. When you buy a new toy, that’s a good time. When you have to do your homework, that’s a bad time. Both are inevitable—”
He scratched his head.
“Do you know what inevitable means?”
He shook his head.
“It means something that is sure to happen. So you can’t escape doing your homework; you’ll have to do it. Everyone does. That doesn’t mean life is bad though. You’ll also get new toys, especially on your birthday and Christmas. That’s also something that is sure to happen.”
I paused. Too idealistic. Can’t paint him a picture that everyone gets presents.
“However, if you’re from a poor family, then you won’t always get new toys. Those families have to celebrate in other ways. Like… making their own presents out of dried macaroni or something…”
He wrinkled his brow. Getting off topic. Dang.
“So what I mean is, everyone has to deal with good times and bad times. It’s the people who know how to be happy with these good and bad times that will live happily ever after.”
He scratched his head again.
“Let me try it this way. The term ‘ever after’ is a pretty broad term. Some people find love and get married and have kids, and they’re happy. But it may not necessarily be ever after. They may be happy for many years and then go through a messy divorce with crazy custody battles over their kids.”
His jaw dropped and his eyes popped open.
“Oh, no no no, I don’t mean to say that your parents will get divorced! I’m sure they’re one of the couples who WILL live happily ever after. I’m just saying that not all couples do. But when a couple does, like your parents, then you all live happily ever after!”
He closed his mouth, but his brow was still wrinkled.
“Some marriages last a good long time. Until they die, which would be the logical end of ‘ever after,’ but that’s—”
His jaw dropped again. Dang!
“I mean, not die! Well, no, everyone has to die. But don’t focus on that right now! What I mean is, um, what I’m trying to say is that… uh…”
He scratched his head and shuffled his feet. “You don’t really know the answer, do you?”
“Huh? Why sure, I just told you the—”
“Nuh uh, you don’t really know.”
We stared at each other in silence. My toes itched. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
He broke the stalemate first. “Gee, I thought that when you get old, you get smarter and know things. But you don’t know anything. I hope that when I get old, I’ll know the answer.”
Then he shuffled away. I scratched my head and wrinkled my brow.
. . .
Do people really live happily ever after?
