I believe that we are entering an incredible new era where information flows faster and more freely when Adam Smith's invisible hand will work significantly faster. We all have to thank Google for this, I never realized how revolutionary Google was until I started reading and writing blogs.
I used to tell my wife that if something was not in the news it was probably not true until I lived in the US. I used to drive to work listening to NPR (left leaning) and drive back home listening to Fox News (right leaning). I was always amazed at how the exact same piece of news could be spun differently, reinforcing something my dad would always preach based on St. Thomas Aquinas: "beware of the man of one book!".
I am more convinced than ever that today there are no excuses for anyone to do something they do not like, nor to do something they should not do because they are unaware of the consequences of their actions.
This week three casual conversations got me thinking and once again I arrived at the same conclusion: don't defer your dreams for retirement, vacation or the weekend, every single day counts. We need the work days, the weekends and the vacation days, they all have a role in life but we need to enjoy them all. Like "The Byrds" song "Turn Turn Turn" (words adapted from the Bible) used to say:
To Everything
There is a season
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
The first conversation was with a few work friends where one person interjected and shared that money was not an object for him, he simply loved what he did. So I quickly gave him a "give me your money and be even happier!".
The second one was with my daughter. I was having breakfast with her and she shared that she did not want to work when she got older. I asked her what she liked and she said "math, reading and science". I told her that with that she could do pretty much anything and that if she found something she liked she would look forward to working, just like daddy. She then replied "of course you like your work, everybody knows you!". Thinking more about it this is true for nearly everywhere I worked as I am fairly social. Knowing that she loves basketball I then told her that I could have chosen to be a basketball player. Her face was priceless, "you could have been a basketball player and you chose to work?". I shared with her that I simply did not like basketball enough to put in the hours of practice required to be successful at it, but that she would understand it when she got there. She concluded that "OK, I definitely want to be a fashionista, I spent hours drawing my last dress".
The third conversation was with my wife. She shared reading that a Chinese Executive argued that Chinese goods were cheaper because Chinese Executives did not make millions of dollars.
So where am I going with this? I will get there, but before I continue I want you to watch the video below,this inspired me to write this and it poses a great question as to what are we doing with our brain.
Money cannot be an end, it is simply an exchange mechanism. Once we see it that way everything becomes clearer. In my humble opinion we need money, this is the best mechanism devised to replace bartering as a way to exchange the fruits of our labor. With all its imperfections no better mechanism has been devised to date to help us exchange our talents, so cheers to Capitalism! The socialist experiment was interesting but it proved that in order to work it cannot be forced upon people. When someone decides what others should do we are deprived of our most special gift: free will.
I have been doing what I have always done lately, somewhat my favorite past-time: solving problems. It all started with math problems that were then transferred to engineering and finally to business. But this was not all I liked, I also liked sports. I spent most of my time playing soccer until I was 13, when I started playing basketball. I had a very disciplined routine, leaving school at 12, finishing my homework and going to the club I played for, most of the time much sooner than practice time, giving me time to play volleyball with the volleyball team. A little later I started skateboarding until I was about 17. But once again I never liked these enough to do it full-time, or in all honesty simply did not have the talent to live out of it. Accepting our limitations is part of leading a good life, but until today I fit in a sport into my routine.
Today I am discovering a whole new world in philosophy. I have been reading a lot lately and "phylosophing" a bit myself. A friend of mine who is going through mid-life crisis shared an interesting concept. When we approach our 40s we reach neurological maturity and we begin questioning many things we have never questioned before. I have always been an inquisitive person and really never posed existential questions to myself, but that quickly changed with my brain tumor diagnose. I have always lived a life for the present. Someone posted on Facebook that interesting people move several times, restart life several times, among other things, and an article in Forbes magazine from Jessica Hagy gives the following advice on how to be interesting (as if being interesting was something to be pursued...):
1. Explore
2. Share What You Find Out
3. Do Something. Anything
4. Embrace Your Innate Abilities
5. Embrace a Cause
6. Don't be Arrogant
7. Give it a Shot
8. Hop off the Bandwagon
9. Be Brave
10. Ignore "Normal" People
To me the only way to be interesting is to be interesting to yourself. The only person you owe an explanation to is to the person you see in the mirror everyday. I found a few people who have followed their heart and their brain and this is what they are doing:
So do you need to do all this to be happy? Absolutely not! You need to find out what you like and do it as best as you can, so that when you report it to the person in the mirror you can look him in the eye and say "I tried my best".
I am trying to use my brain as best as I can while I have it. The brain is God's gift to us, in my philosophical thoughts I arrived at something that somewhat helped me define God after realising that the definition of God is somewhat taken for granted. God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. After seeing what humanity has accomplished it is hard to believe that we are not, by definition, God's image and reflection. And that our Holiness resides in our brain, the organ in our body that gives us presence, awareness and potential.
What are you doing with your brain?
Brain, use it wisely!
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