People w/ Purpose

When I read about a young girl who designed flip-flops and got picked up by Macy’s, I thought that was awesome.

My daughter thought the girl in White House Down was also.

Built-in and born with. That recognition of greatness, valor and something grander than one’s self.

We might not end up being one, but we can recognize it when we see it.

Self-actualization.

United Flight 93 passengers had not thought of themselves as heroes or martyrs.

But they have become in our history book.

People with purpose.

Not cogs in the machine.

But inventors of one.

The market is the most democratic place. People vote with their own pocket-book.

Those who don’t make it pass the Valley of Death, won’t be around.

Survival of the fittest.

ROI. COD. Billions of transaction daily.

See that need, pin it down. Think up a solution. Implement and Evaluate.

Out of the gene pool emerge People with Purpose.

Design a flip flop (after all, in the summer or in Asia, they are shoes).

Flag twirling? An extra curriculum? Use it when needed.

The inventor of the mouse (for computer program which was called CAT) has died.

He saw the coming of the computer age.

Jobs also. Sitting in a minimalist room, or even laying down, he came up with the I-Pad, a tweak of Notebook which HP had flopped and could never play catch up.

The purpose-driven life has a short span. It takes you into the zone, the Kairos, as opposed to Chronos, which inmates know damn well.

When was the last time you pick up a good book, and immerse yourself in it? Its narrative, plot and twist, laughter and sorrow.

Writers invent a world of their own.

With a purpose.

Raymond Carver observed the absurdity and agony of our modern age, albeit in sleepy NorthWest.

His short life did not seem to be a waste (spending away his Chronos jumping from one odd job to another, just to create and give us a chance to enter into his Kairos).

Where do I begin, to tell the story of ….People of Purpose.

You find greatness everyday. You just miss it.

Greatness doesn’t scream from the distance for attention.

It is hidden like in an acre of diamond.

Hidden jewel.

Awaiting discovery.

In most the unlikely place.

Like right here, right now.

And when found, it will get us to jump out of our seats. To follow its light. To be changed and be that force of change.

I like that little girl who designs flip-flops. Her age doesn’t come as a hindrance. It makes news.

Self-decoding

Our gene distribution and mutation have a lot in common (survival instinct, reproduction, empathy etc…). But from there, each of us is different and unique: some poets, others warriors or both.

Haruki Murakami is both a writer and a runner (100 km race).  Richard Blanco, who will recite at Obama’s Inauguration, is both an engineer and a poet.

Leonardo Da Vinci was multi-talented. I am threading in Malcolm Gladwell’s waters here. What makes a person genius? How did they find that out? Early or late in life (Raymond Carver took writing courses late in life).

What if we are “outliers”, but go about life undiscovered, undecoded?

What line do we have to cross to “find ourselves”?

10,000 hours of doing the same thing? Solving problems at the same level they occurred has never worked. Just think of failed relationships (rooted in dysfunctional families, then manifest itself later in life).

A new generation of young Americans are defining themselves with acronyms (NYT latest on Annette Bening and Warren Beatty kids).

Being first-wave immigrant, I serve as a bridge, for my American-born daughters to cross-over.

They are on Facebook and Twitter. They wear jeans and use I-phones.

They text (while I twist, well, not that old. My brother did) often times with abbreviation and speak a language of their peers.

While I enjoyed lengthy 20-minute long CCR’s O Suzie Q and Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love, they watch viral  YouTube’s clips.

I belong to a generation that enjoyed getting blasted at, while theirs is an uploading one (one-to-many vs many-to-many communication).

They can “read” someone instinctively (gene mutation?), decoding people rather quickly. I meanwhile grew up learning how to  entertain guests, give them benefits of the doubt (not three-strikes-you-are-out).

They speak in short bursts and shorthands. My prof’s however spent a lot of time setting up a theme before getting to the heart of their lectures.

We learn to comprehend and communicate bound by technology of any given time (a tweet lasts only 140 characters, with some buffering).

I remember sending post cards home when doing relief work overseas.

Before I get to what I wanted to say, I ran out of room. Overseas long distance phone calls were quite prohibitive. Even now, to call back to the US from Timbuktu is quite daunting.

Life is a crash course in understanding ourselves and our surroundings.

It might end abruptly, and there are no final exams. We will have to rely on others to “see” for us (director’s cut or uncut, novelist, poet and priest).

Born with this inability to see ourselves with our own eyes (only reflection in the mirror), we are humble and eager to discover more, to surprise ourselves at times: we have more courage, flexibility and nobility than we know. Only when we are in good company, in danger that a better version of ourselves emerge.

Outliers know this early in life. Others just focus on one or two things they are passionate about. Runner-writer, engineer-poet. What if you are better in the kitchen than in the boardroom? We call them chefs and not chiefs. And it’s OK too, given today’s technology e.g. YouTube. I hope your secret sauce go viral. Just make sure you speak in short bursts when targeting younger audience.