Project Night Sky — 1 — Crossroads

Welcome to Project Night Sky.

Hello there! This is a project of where my nighttime ramblings become transcribed and organized. I think the night sky is a mysterious phenomenon. One look up and you can see a universe that is so vast that humanity itself seems insignificant. It’s the closest I will get to the Overview Effect experienced by astronauts as they see Earth from space.

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Yet, we continue living in our bubble called earth and through this experience called life. Life advice is vital in… well, life. There is a plethora of quotes and sayings that you can live by but no saying is ever absolute. There is always a saying out there that will contradict it. For example example the saying “The early bird gets the worm” and the folktale of the “Tortoise and Hare” directly contradict each other. Should you be first? Should you take your time?

The first stretch of Project Night Sky will analyze these contradictions. I believe that there is truth in both sides and the paradox can be resolved if both are simultaneously accepted. I believe the answer is to accept the ambiguity.

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The first Night Sky talk I want to mention is one that happened a few years, near the end of my college career. I was perched on top of my friends roof when the campus was dead. Everyone had gone home for the holidays enjoying the festivities while I was stressing out about taking the right path or the left path in life. I was choosing my post-graduation path. This is a common decision that (hopefully) all college students put a lot of thought into. This decision would impact the rest of my life and there is minimal room for error. The moment I settle, the other doors of opportunity are quickly creaking shut.

These crossroads are seem multiple times throughout life for this is how you choose to spend your waking hours (only 657,000 of them!). I was going through the first major one of my life and there were two specific quotes that were critical in helping me choose the right path.

• “Timshell!” — East of Eden (Worth a read)
• “know what you are good at. Do that.” — Alamo Sq. Park person

“Timshell” is Hebrew for “Thou Mayest”. Anyone can achieve anything if they put their mind to it, regardless of the circumstances. There was a boy born into poverty in Kentucky, lost his mother at 9, and disliked farmwork so worked odd jobs until he enlisted as a soldier. This boy was Abraham Lincoln. In East of Eden, Cal had a mother that never loved him and a brother who he helped send to the grave which caused his dad to have a stroke. “Timshel” was used in this case to show that Cal has the choice to do evil or to do good since family relations and history do not affect that choice. It reiterates the power of choice and potential to change your future.

“What would you tell yourself if you were my age?” I asked a man holding a “FREE LIFE ADVICE” sign. He was packing up for the day. As he was rolling up his mat, he told a somber life story of failure after failure until he settled on a company at the ripe old age of 44. He looked back upon those wasted hours and wished that he had switched to his current job earlier. Something he was actually good at — even though it was procedural and not romanticized as his original dream. He concluded his story by saying “You can be very driven. But it’s important to know what you are good at. Do that. “

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There is merit in both of these sayings. It’s a miracle that Abraham Lincoln was able to rise to the presidency given his humble beginnings. But in reality, for every Abraham there is in history, there are countless failed Abrahams. This is a dose of reality that people fail to mention when you are told to dream big.

I continue to live by these words and reiterate them to myself over and over again. Dream big. Aim for the stars and land among them and learn your potential and what you can achieve because you might surprise yourself.

A few years ago, I had this idea where my friend and I would create a social organization and host an annual show. I played around with the idea until last year, I decided to push it. I recruited four more friends to the planning table and eight months later, it happened and it blew past my expectations. There were people saying that the show actually changed their life. I was shook. I had no idea that an idea that was thrown around almost jokingly would come to fruition. From a single dream to a sold-out show that is continuing this year.

This was only possible because I knew no bounds and was not afraid of failure. I knew that if I failed, I would just treat laugh it off in the future and applaud our feeble attempts — just like the time I thought I could build hardware better than a startup.

This year, I invested capital into buying and manufacturing hardware in-house. I specced out every tiny part down to the nuts and bolts and when everything arrived I spent hours at my workbench but after 3 months, nothing came of it.

There was also the time where I wanted to become a professional Tennis player. That dream fizzled out quickly.

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When you dream, you need to dream in an unbounded state. If you limit your potential, you will fail to reach your max potential. The human mind and body have so much potential, even humanity cannot predict the next major breakthrough that we will achieve. The ones who can continue to live by these metrics are the visionaries that can push the boundaries that we know of today.

Reality does not allow for dreaming in an unbounded state. There are laws of nature that will always be present that we can overcome but cannot remove. If you walk the path of a pure visionary, you will quickly learn reality will bring you to a stop.

Therefore, in order to continue dreaming, you need to deviece yourself of these realistic limitations and continue moving forwards. Unlimited potential is for ones that deceive oneself of reality.

Reality is, Abraham Lincoln was poor and had almost no chance of reaching the presidency. But he was able to deceive himself of fact and continue pushing forwards until he became president.

Reality is, I had never tried creating a organization before but I was able to deceive myself that I could until it was established. Reality is, I didn’t have the necessary passion and athletic ability to become a professional tennis player and I didn’t have the willpower to deceive myself any further.

When at a crossroads at your life and there is a critical decision to be made. Ask yourself if you can truthfully deceive yourself of your abilities until you have attained them. If so, that is the correct to path. If you cannot, that choice would be ill-advised.

There is a third type. The perfect fit with no deception. But any path where there is no internal deception needed is selling yourself short.