"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.
(read more…)
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?"
"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?"
"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?"
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.
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?)
"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.
What if I went to an art school for college? Kim just gave me this challenge:
For your next ramble — "What if…" The topic? Pick a person. ANY person — and play the game of "What if…" things had happened differently with this particular person.
While I could pick some long-lost friend or an ex-girlfriend and give you a real juicy story, I'm not going to. Buy me a beer one day and maybe I'll tell you that story. For now, let's see what would have happened if I had chosen to go to art school for college.
My Mom would kill me if she knew I put $1000 on red at a roulette table. Oh, wait, she reads this site. Hi Mom! Guess what I did this weekend?
We deserve our fate. It's our collective fault that we've created so much pollution.
Call me a pessimist, but I don't see much hope in our world's corporations and governments. I don't believe they'll take enough significant action in time to make a difference. It would take a complete societal overhaul to save us now.
Weekly random rambles, musings & writings of Mike Lee in San Francisco, CA