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| Prologue... "They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are..." It's been a long time since I've sat here like this, armed with a few reflective thoughts and a burning drive to get them out on electronic paper. It's been months, maybe even years, since I felt like I do now. As the Starcraft marine put it in the SC2 trailer a year ago, "Damn... it's about time..." Nearly five years ago, I had been dilegently writing in my Xanga about my experiences as a new college student ( http://skyrien.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Skyrien&nextdate=8%2f30%2f2004+23%3a59%3a59.999); I wrote about my expectations, the challenges, the joys, and the inevitable pains as I explored the social, academic, and miscellaneous elements that made up the college experience. It's a joy reading it again, and a pleasure knowing that even then, I had the passion and drive realize a particular story of my life--that of the unregretful life learner. Clearly, I didn't end college without mistakes, but perhaps I could live without regrets, knowing that the best is, as always, yet to come. And now, here I am again; where I was 19 then, now I'm 24--a little older, and who knows, maybe even a little wiser, and better able to reflect on what I'm trying to do with my life, and where I'm going. Thankfuly, I don't think I'm facing a crisis right now; as my freshman year at Microsoft dwindles to a close, I feel I'm in a good place with my career start. My greatest unknowns at this point are not my short-term career situation (thank God for that) but rather the two-to-five-year plan. Wheras in undergrad, the four years made sense; broken down into neat measurable chunks called semesters (or quarters), where you could frame distinct goals for yourself, be it GPA, a job, or some other personal goal. And at the end of each year, you had a whole summer to reflect on it. Now, as my fellow career-following brothers and sisters know, it's not so easy. Three weeks of vacation hardly seem like enough, and unlike school, there are no checkpoints or goals than those you set completely on your own. I read a good book in college that taught me: "Never confuse your career with your life," and I've lived with that mantra for several years. It doesn't mean that career isn't important; in fact, I took it to mean that your career should be focused to allow you to live a good life (and not the other way around). So, while I spent time building my skills and proficiencies for work, I've also been balancing it out with personal development in the form of hobbies, idle-time, friends, and meaningful relationships. And while I sometimes envy those that know exactly what they want from life, and have never questioned the way of things, I've often ended up debating for long period of time at the major branching points in my life. "Do I stay in neuroscience, or should I jump ship to engineering?" "Is the University of Illinois going to give me what I want out of my undergraduate experience?" "Chicago, or Seattle; Microsoft or Accenture?" These are all questions that I've grappled with over the four years of college, and have ended with a swift decision; none of which have led to any lasting regrets. I spent the first year here, intending to explore what this young-adult, post-college corporate work lifestyle had to offer. Yet now, as I look towards the second year at MSFT, with a half-dozen hobbies, and just as many groups of friends, I wonder how all of this fits into where it will take me over the next few years. Sad as it may be, watching Transformers tonight made me realize that I have this immese internal drive to DO something meaningful, save the world, impact people, and have a Michael Bay-isque rollercoaster ride of a life while I fight to get there. But drive alone takes you nowhere, and as Kate mentioned in her entry, before you can do something with your life, you have to know what you want... and that means knowing yourself. She also mentioned that there's a lot going on out there in the world, and now, with Facebook, Twitter follower counts, Technorati numbers, or Virology scores, there are evermore ways to judge your own odds for the kind of success you dream for. Fear of mediocrity looms large in our young-adult minds. But rather than feeling inadequate in the face of greater success by those around us toting 4.0s, or 20%s, or followers in the tens of thousands, why not let it serve as a reminder that there's much work to be done? For even the greatest individuals had to start somewhere. I've always become a fan for people that know themselves and derive true satisfaction from the passion of what they do. Even if they struggle in finding their place in the economy, in their industry, their life plan, or even in their own minds, I love speaking with anyone that has a burning desire to live a meaningful life. Maybe it's just the bittersweet idealist in me, but I always think it's better to hope and lose, than never to have hopes at all. One's a story worth telling, the other... that's just lame. Anyway, enough of my disjointed post-movie watching ramble; here's to yet another beginning! Where I'll be in four years time, I can hardly guess. Let's just say that I am absolutely dedicated to making it something I'm proud of. All right now, enough of that reflective idealistic crap, time to jump into reality. On to Xander's Life, Chapter 1. | | |
| (Note, this entry was originally published on: http://blog.skyrien.com/?p=17) I attended an awesome Microsoft Research Visiting Speaker session with Keith Ferrazzi last week. Keith Ferrazzi is, of course, the youngest partner in Deloitte Consulting's history, now-CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, and the author of the New York Times Bestseller, "Never Eat Alone" ( http://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Secrets-Relationship/dp/0385512058). The book speaks of the importance of building real relationships based on emotional connections and mutual trust, to success in business and life. I haven't read the book, but I had heard plenty about it from various sources, so I knew Ferrazzi himself would have something interesting to say, the way bestselling authors usually do, so I took a break during the middle of the day and checked it out. The topic of the talk was called "Who's got your back?" loosely related to another book of his of the same name. Here's the summary from the book cover itself: Disregard the myth of the lone professional "superman" and the rest of our culture's go-it alone mentality. The real path to success in your career and in your personal life is through creating an inner circle of "lifeline relationships" - deep, close relationships with a few key trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback, and generous mutual support that every one of us needs to reach our full potential. Whether your dream is to lead a company, be a top producer in your field, overcome the self-destructive habits that hold you back, lose weight or make a difference in the larger world, Who's Got Your Back will give you the roadmap you've been looking for to achieve the success you deserve The first thing that struck me was how true the above was. It seems obvious that networking is critical to professional success, everyone needs friends, and proper people skills are often the greatest barrier to massive riches. Sure, everyone understands that, but so often, it's from the practical perspective of, "how do I use this relationship to my advantage", or "what can I get out of this relationship"; in other words, a purely business, or tactical relationship--like a game of Risk, (or Monopoly, as I recently realized), where you form a relationship so long as it is to your personal advantage. As sad as it is, it's often accepted as the stressful, impersonal reality of corporate life... Or is it really? These views of the social cynic trying to climb the corporate America ladder haven't impressed me much--mostly because I, like Elissa, believe that all relationships, even those formed in industry are personal, and will have impact far longer than you might understand. Keith corroborated that line of thinking by asking us to think of three people that's "got our backs". These are three people, friends, coworkers, family, whom you trust to have your best interests in mind, and are committed to your personal and professional success. And these aren't just the occasional mentor, or career coach (although they certainly can be)--these are three people that understand you, your dreams, and are bold enough to push/prod and challenge you when you need it. If you didn't have three people, you'd better have a way in mind to build those critical life relationships. Do you have three people? When I tried to name my three in my head, a lot of names and faces bubbled up. People I'd grown up with, my parents, old mentors, pastors, friends... but *very* few actually stuck as people whom I was truly open with, and shared my dreams, hopes, fears, and ultimately people that understood me enough to help me make purpose of my life. And this isn't to say that I've false-friends; rather, that I haven't been entirely honest around the people closest to me; that even amongst my closest friends, I've structured a façade to build an image for myself which I would try to live up to. Holden might have called me a phony. In any case, that question made me rethink of what my role was in ensuring my own success. I think the best advice I could glean from that was… "keep it real". The second question he asked was a derivative of a common childhood question about life, also frequently used as an interview question. The original was boring, but his made me think hard: "What are you afraid that you won't achieve in your life?" All too often, I try to answer the reverse question: "What do I want to achieve?". It's a great question; it gets you to think with life as a blank slate, and find possibilities to get from A to B. It makes you bubble up all the idealistic things you want to accomplish. His question was different. On the surface, it's the same, but it makes you think differently, as if life was a picture all complete, and now you had to take a big bad eraser and start wiping away dreams. It makes you ask yourself, what is most important to you? At least, that's how I interpreted that question, and I really thought about what would be most important to me at the end of my life. For me, it boiled down to three things: - Family. Self-explanatory.
- Significant contribution to society--preferably a positive technological impact in the way we live, share, and reflect on our lives.
- Been good to my friends, family, and community--being someone that I can live with.
Fortunately, for me, the answers were nearly the same--(showing that ive minimized cognitive dissonance over the past few years); yet it gave a fresh new perspective of looking at my life in terms of things I can't do without. It was good. The final lessons I learned from Keith were his struggles with insecurity; the fear that you weren't measuring up. I laughed at this point, because that's exactly how I feel quite often; even in the face of clear success, somewhere deep down, I ask self-defeating, skeptical questions to myself, "was this a fluke?; do I really deserve this?; is this gonna be the best I'll ever be?" It's like I'm subtlety asking for someone to scream at me at tell me on a job well done, but even then, I might not have believed it. He spoke of when his first book got to the NYT Bestsellers list… how instead of cheering, and being happy, he freaked out and asked those very same questions. Funny, isn't it--that if your personality doesn't allow you to relax, even in the face of success like this, you'll be stressed out. The key is to work hard, be humble, but to give yourself a pat on the back from time to time. I don't have much else to say beyond what I"ve already said, except… I'll definitely be attending more MSR Visiting Speaker seminars from now on. :) | | |
| This is terrible. I've spent the last hour trying to figure out which blog of mine to continue writing in, and couldn't come up with a good enough reason to pick and stick with one. I've got a whole gamut of sites, from Xanga, LJ, Vox, skyrien.com, Live Spaces, my own MSFT blog, Facebook notes... each with entirely different audiences. *Sigh*--what a ridiculous dilemma. You know what? I'm gonna post IN THEM ALL! And then see what happens. Take that indecision!
Not like I'd even how to write even if I had picked one. I can't seem to form coherent paragraphs anymore... or think past the first few words of a sentence... maybe it has to do with the constant high-on-caffeine feeling that I've been putting myself into these days.
Not like I'd know what to write about even if I could. Sure there's been a lot going on, I've had crazy insights about life and all that over the past few years that I've been relatively absent from the bloggosphere... Of course, my thoughts still want to get out but, for some reason, the motivation to put thought to strings of words just isn't there.
I think that's why I've been so prolific on Facebook PSUs and Twitter these days--it's ridiculously easy to just do a little mind dump; a fleeting thought--which basically used to be how most of my blog entries started out anyway. Like a recent Wired post suggested, maybe that's exactly why Twitter is catching on--140 characters is just enough space to drop a well crafted thought. No filler, no literary sugar, just the raw thought that you've been meaning to share. Simple right?
Twitter definitely has a place in the realm of social communication, but the fact that it's replacing more sophisticated methods of social discourse is disturbing. Whatever happened to those long sweeping ridiculously unnecessary blog post from our teenage angst days? Sure there were plenty of whiny, pseudo-artsy, pointlessly drivel-y, wordy, useless entries out there but even those were very satisfying to write and entertaining to read. I remember posting about five years back on Xanga (2004) that I hoped blogging wasn't just a fad. Well, since then, it's definitely caught on with the political pundits and social media producers of the world, but it seems to have vanished from our day-to-day social lives.
A damn shame. Anyway, I guess I do have plenty I want to write about--and can on occasion form thoughts that are longer than 140 characters. That's good to know. :) | | |
| Do you think it's possible to live for years, living somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else, than who you were meant to be. What does it mean when you surround yourself in a reality as real as any, yet completely different from all the other choices in your life? As I've gone along the various branches of my life, I've occasionally wondered how different things would have been had I made some different choices in life; in some other parallel timeline, I might not be in my little Seattle apartment (which is becoming to feel more and more like home every day/week/month that goes by), and instead... instead what?
Is there a point to think of any of these alternate paths? There are so many tiny choices I make every day that have the potential to make far-reaching changes in my life: I could've gone a little slower that night, and maybe avoided that nasty indestructible pole; I could've been in a different mood the moment I made the decision to come out West; and things would've been a world away from what they are.
Meh, I think I'm just in a thinking mode again. I do this every couple years; fall into a metacognitive frenzy, and completely rethink my life and why I'm living and thinking the way I am. In doing so, I'll wonder if the world I'm in now is the one I want to be in the next couple years. Haha, if this was college, it might be when I'd consider changing my major  . I'm not a freshman in college, I'm a freshman in the working world; the "MSFT Starting Class of 9/2/2008", and I've just started my second semester (or should I do quarters?). Whatever the past 4 months have been, it's a beautiful time to start again, and, that is a great time to reaffirm what I've been doing so far.
In the end, I can't answer the question I started this entry with, but in another "semester" I think I will be able to. Knowing me, after a phase like this, I know I'll reaffirm what's important to me, and realize and remember for the next 2 years that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And that reason may be to ultimately be here, or maybe just to learn from the experience and to go home ... wherever "home" may be.
Life is beautiful, and like Frost told me on a pillow once, if there's anything I've learned, is that "It goes on..."
Oh, happy 2009! This is the year of the Ox! Fellow Oxen (1985 people!), this is our year! It's time to show this world what we're all about! | | |
| So... with barely 4 months of life in her, Xela is no more. While driving down 148th Ave NE in Redmond, late Saturday evening, I suddenly lost control, slipped about 90 degrees, and the driver-side door of my car met the broadside of an indestructable pole at about 30 MPH . Needless to say, the damage was crippling: one second I'm driving down the road (straight line, flat), the next, I'm seeing this metal thing come at me really really fast, and the next, I hear a boom(!), a flash of light, and get the wind blown out of my lungs. The window and sunroof, shattered instantly, and the airbag exploded blocking the pole and probably saving my life (or at least, my brain). 
It reminded me of the time I fell off the monkey bars in kindergarten; I couldn't breathe for about 10 seconds, but had the presence of mind to check to see if I had broken any bones. I don't know how long I was there, but I remember knocking outside my door, and some kind strangers were saying that they called 911, and asked if I was okay. I slowly came to my senses, and stumbed out of the car: 
What scared me most was how the pole's impact was exactly where my head would have been, hadn't it been for the airbag. With it, I survived, with only a few bruises and glass related cuts. In any case, I'm happy to be perfectly fine, 2 days after the crash. Xela, my beloved Scion tC however, is no more... 
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