Course Correction
I was going to be a dropout. Until I wasn’t.
I was going to live in Mexico City. Until I wasn’t.
There are many things I was going to do until I wasn’t going to do them. Why is that? How do I reconcile that seemingly chaotic decision-making with having clarity? In retrospect it is very simple, because you’ve only travelled one path, yet in the present it is much more complex, because there’s always a plethora of overlapping paths that could become your future.
My purpose has always been clear in some general way. I’ve always know that I want to have a lasting impact — whatever that could mean — through innovation and technology. I’ve always considered myself smart and a leader, yet today its all coming together much more and at a much faster pace than ever before. I guess that I wanted to set precedent, somehow.
My purpose is much clearer now. Today, I know for a fact, that the only reasonable way to define impact is help. One accomplishes something only in relation to how much one helps other people through one’s work, be it directly or indirectly.
I think that until this point, it’s all very generic and probably generally applicable to most people, and I think that’s logical. What it means to be a good person is pretty much an exact science, even despite the individuality of each of us, the individuality presents itself in the implementation.
What is the best way for you to put yourself in the service of other people?
It is not only a matter of implementation, but of optimization. We could all help in many ways; we can all code, lead, advertise, teach, manage, write, swim professionally, but we all shouldn’t. There’s only so much we can be the best at, and only a select — some say one — list of activities that you can do really well with much less effort and much more pleasure than most other people.
Throughout our lives, we all have the time and opportunities to test exactly what this activity is for our specific case; it is our duty figuring it out, as much as it is doing it the best we can once we find out. From this position of formal uncertainty, then, the only logical thing to do is to do everything as good as we possibly can, and stay on the look for possible contenders to what we could be doing that makes life more joyful and our impact more lasting. Optimizing for impact and service ought to be one and the same to optimizing for happiness and fulfillment.
I find myself happiest and most effective through leadership in technology and innovation. I do those better than most people, and I am very fulfilled by doing so. Today that’s what I hope to do, and do it as well and with as most reach as I can possible handle.
A seminal problem of humankind is, I have observed, the idea that we get any more shots at life than one. Lots of the time, we live as if we were going to live forever, yet we die, by the millions ever day.
Today, I have chosen to study high school and remain in Chihuahua, my hometown, contradicting plans I had only a couple of weeks earlier, but with no contradiction to my logic. It’s hard but it’s all very simple; being the best version of yourself you can achieve, by doing the most with what you’ve got.
Somedays I wonder where I could be today had my past self done differently, I used to dwell on it a fair amount, yet I basically don’t do so anymore; now, I just see it so clear: life’s what happens ahead, what has happened is useful only to the extent that informs your purpose, retroactive hypotheticals are less than meaningless, they’re a burden.
The most important thing in everyone’s life when it comes to happiness and fulfillment, it’s infinite clarity, and that’s something that has no shortcuts. Today life shows itself to my with uncanny clarity, I hear it and see it, in awe, and can only think of one truly important thing: quoting Dylan, keep on keeping on.
