I wrote this to someone in summer of 2006.
“So I guess in light of that, I don’t really have formal goals set up. Sometimes I think too far ahead, make myself believe that I want to become a CEO of a company like IBM. Other times I’m just concentrating on things like getting a full time job offer after this internship. Sometimes it’s really general, like I want to succeed in life. But how do I really succeed? I think it’s really a combination of raising a family with a job I’ll be comfortable with. If money was not an issue, I would definitely be working as a firefighter right now. I’d love to do nothing but listen to different music, try and learn and master all sorts of musical instruments, learn to snowboard better, learn to windsurf, become a lot better at skateboarding and the sorts. My perception of my own success isn’t relative to others’ accomplishments; it’s all relative to what I believe I’m capable of and how far I can push that limit of assumption.
I sometimes feel like I want to change the world. I want to know why my body is carrying the kind of soul that I have, and want to make a difference, not only to subconsciously wanting to become important, but more so because I wouldn’t really understand the point of it all if it wasn’t that way. I wouldn’t really understand the point of having the experience I had with the people I was surrounded by, between the various people I’ve interacted with and gotten to know across the world, learning what I’m capable of, what I’m good at, what I’m passionate about, if all I was to do in this world was to have a family and a stable job. If that was the case, then it would be no different than if my soul was to be implanted among billions of underprivileged men and women out there in the world. I think to that end, I’m satisfied knowing that if I just try hard enough, look in the right places often enough, and knock on doors long enough, I will then be motivate enough to reach for any goal that I believe will reveal itself in time. I am merely in a boat without a compass; I’m the captain who will stop at nothing to go in a direction, any direction, as long as it is away from the comfortable coastlines I’ve come to see everytime I reflectively close my eyes. I’ve tried looking for that universal guide. But I’ve become more reliant on my ability to adapt to the ever changing tide than my ability to depend on the false hope that somewhere in that small boat of mine, someone out there had the ill will to choose my destination and my fate along with it. “