The Blank Slate

The beautiful and most challenging thing about each post is that it begins with a blank page. Nothing but white and a blinking cursor prompting you to share your innermost thoughts and realities. It has no objective, holds no bias, and forms no opinion other than the one created by the writer who uses it.  It's simple, clean, and utterly daunting if you allow it to be.

Such is also every day. A day, regardless of how fantastic or nightmarish, is but 24 hours long. The sun creeps over the horizon, slowly glides towards its zenith, before descending and tucking back into the folds of darkness. All the events that occur within that span can be entirely independent or entwined with those that have preceded it in days, weeks, and months past. The entire basis of the consistency of our lives is but a continuous chain of these 24 hours of existences.

Your past? A sequence of days that have led up to your present moment. You have zero control now over the events of your past. You are no more chained to your past than you are to the sky. The future? Simply hasn't happened yet. The realm of possibilities is utterly endless. The only thing that your past and future have in common is that both are contained within the sands of time. 24 hours of experiences. The ones you have already have and the ones you will. It's as simple as that.

We humans tend to think of things as a narrow, linear path. The road from point A to point B and all the things that lie in-between. It's the writers, the artists, the philosophers, and the entrepreneurs who truly see just how malleable our lives really are. Mozart was competent with the keyboard and violin by age 5, whereas Stan Lee didn't release his first comic until he was almost 39. One of Edison's most famous quotes is "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."; but a better quote by him was "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

On the flip side, nothing is as simple as we pretend it to be. The "straight and narrow" is hardly straight and not always narrow. It's full of unforeseen dead ends, u-turns, and blinking red traffic lights. You can have a bad day in the middle of a great month and a few dodgy months in a pretty average year. Circumstances are never as permanent as we pretend that they are. The sun rises, and it also sets. The air is still until the wind blows. Bad days and good days come with equal ease.

Whenever a difficult situation arises, there are but two ways you can face them: as a stone or as a river. Certain times, it is necessary to be the stone - unmoving and relentless. Push through and persevere. In the immortal words of Winston Churchill "If you're going through hell, keep going." Other times, it is pertinent to be the river. Flow around your obstacles and adapt. Move on and move forward. It's not always easy to discern which you should choose to be; and sometimes it takes both to make progress and begin the next stage of life.

This blog is my life. Each entry, like each day, begins with a clean slate. Some entries are done in a matter of moments while others take several days to write. And, as with every entry and every day, there is a beginning, middle, and an end. So make the most of the slivers of time that you have been granted. For there will be a day when the blank slate becomes the last one you'll ever have.

The Two Second Difference

Tonight, I had a chance to do a good deed. Twice. And both times took but a fraction of a moment. Let me explain.

The first time, I was about to board a bus, when the girl in front of me tapped her card (we have cards here where you can load money on to them and travel by transit. It's bloody useful) and it said "Insufficient Funds". She tried explaining to the bus driver that she had loaded her card earlier that day; and he was about to boot her, when I pulled out my wallet and handed her the cash. She thanked me and I told her I had been in a similar spot before. We sat apart. End of story one.

The second time happened but ten minutes ago when I overheard a teenager who's waiting for the ferry (just as I am) call a sibling and tell them that he missed his boat (just as I did). I let him know that I'm already getting a cab and we can share it, so he's not stranded. Turns out he's getting off at a different stop as I am and he was able to get a ride. Problem solved. End of story two.

The point I'm trying to make is not to toot my own horn, but that both instances took less than a minute. The fraction of time it takes to make a difference is minimal, at best. Whether its holding the door for someone, letting a person with less items than you go first in line, or even sparing some change to a person you'll never see again. All it takes is just putting yourself out there and making a difference. Even a small one.

Now, both times, I expected nothing in return. Why should I? I don't gain, and that wasn't my motivation. In fact, both times, I didn't give my actions a second thought. Just as when I hold the door open for someone. A kind gesture is not a transaction. There's no exchanging of "karmic" goods. I've done many a good deed and had nothing good reciprocated in return. That's not why I do it. I do it because, if I were in their shoes, I would wish that someone would step up and take action. It's as simple as that.

The Golden Rule, as universal as it is, is far from common place. Most people think it takes a grand effort to make a grand difference. When, in all reality, all it takes is but minimal effort and time to chance someone else's reality.

The moral of the story is this: If you want to change the world, start small. Start in the moment. If you want to see kindness in others, be kindness yourself. Because in the end, we all die. It's how you live that truly matters.

The Slow Snowball of Success

We all dream of different things. One of my closest friends aspires to be a successful artist. Another close friend once wanted to be a professional makeup artist. I, as you know, aspire to be a published author. I've known people who have dreamt of becoming singers, police officers, video game designers, even stay-at-home parents. And, to be quite honest, I know quite a few people who "have no idea what they want to do when they grow up". But each dream is unique to each person. Even the ones who say they don't have one to begin with.

We think that there's some secret formula to success, but really it's a simple mathematical equation: The amount of effort put into the goal times the amount of time spent achieving said goal. If this sounds familiar, it is. Science. Newton's second law of motion: "The greater the force, the greater the acceleration in the direction of that force." (Force, by the way, is mass times acceleration) So, the more time and effort we spend on trying to achieve a goal (in this example, a career), the more likely we are to succeed at doing so. To break this down comprehensively, there's far more inertia in a speeding train than there is crawling snail.

Now, as with the science of motion and the in-exact science of life, there are unseen barriers and circumstances that stand in our way - and can derail us completely. This would be summed up in Newton's first ("A body in motion will remain in motion at constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.") and third ("For every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction.") laws of motion. What goes done must eventually come up. What is going must eventually stop or alter course. In the example of careers, a promotion is a slight change in course; whereas a new job is a much greater change in course. Sometimes, many times actually, a complete alteration of the previous career path.

To use myself as an example, I have had many different sales and customer service jobs, but my current position has little customer interaction and zero sales. It's strictly an analytical position. Yet, writing, which is the career path I wish to do as a full time career eventually, is a complete opposite of both of those types of jobs. In fact, the one common denominator (the most important common denominator) is that they all effect the greater populace in one way or another. Influencing people, you could argue, is my biggest skill set. I have traveled down many different paths, but they all lead to the same road.

So, the question I leave you with is not "what is your dream?" but "what are you doing to achieve it?". What steps are you taking to reach it and what are you procrastinating on that is hindering you in your goal? Are you a locomotive or are you a tumbleweed? Because, let's be honest, the biggest boulder in the journey to your dreams is you.