Today’s pictures: For those who wonder where I spent most of 2001-2003, these two pictures pretty much sum it up. One is the corner of the Backer that we occupied for a vast majority of business school. Actually, we probably occupied every single corner of that bar, this is just the one that I have a picture of. And somehow, despite all the damage I did to myself during those two years, I can tell you about events that happened in that very spot. The other picture is of the Doermer Center, now with a sign. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there when we were students. I’m surprised that there is any need to indicate precisely where the Doermer is. As I said after one particularly harrowing Security Analysis project, you can pretty much find it by the scent of fear and desperation.
Oh, and also it isn’t springtime unless there are ducks swimming on the grass in the Main Quad. In typical EC style, I got in on Thursday when the weather was beautiful but waited until Friday to walk the campus. A day that was cloudy and rainy and at one point had so much fog that I couldn’t see Mendoza from the JACC. Looks like the weather hasn’t changed.
It is strange the sense of nostalgia that hit me while I walked through Mendoza. I understand feeling nostalgic when I went back to my high school last year. There I was reliving memories from half a lifetime ago, back when I was a know-it-all kid. Here I was, looking back at a place I was a few years ago as an adult and going, “That’s where my mailbox used to be! And there’s my old locker!” like a complete idiot. I wouldn’t do that in an old office. I don’t long for any of my old cubicles. Maybe that just shows how different a world business school was for me.
On to the current state of my life, which probably still needs some additional discussion. I’ll grant you that I am lazy. As someone who has stated that his dream job is to sit on his couch and watch ESPN Classic all day that is a perfectly fair adjective to use about my lifestyle. But that’s not the real reason behind my reluctance to do what my heart is telling me to do. The real reason is that I’m scared to death that I might fail.
I’ve always found it interesting that most people view me as successful when in reality all I’ve ever done is put myself in situations where I couldn’t fail. I did it in college when I decided to be an electrical engineer instead of following my dream of being a writer. Even though EE is insanely difficult I knew that at the end of the day it is just math and I could figure it out. But writing, that was something that I could do my very best at and have a professor look at my work, shake his head, and go “Have you ever thought about being an accountant?” And I couldn’t risk that level of failure. My work at the electric company (not the PBS one) was another case where I found a role where my ability to see patterns and having a photographic memory were the two biggest keys to success. I’ve always taken the path where, while it may be difficult, I knew that I would succeed.
(And yes, I know that this is at the heart of why I am so god awful at relationships. I really have trouble with situations where I can fail without even doing anything wrong. Equations are much simpler, if a hell of a lot less enjoyable.)
So that is how I’ve found myself in my current predicament. I’m leading a perfectly comfortable and blessed, though unsatisfying, life. And I’m not sure how to handle this without making huge changes to my life. I still like what I do for a living and there are very few jobs I know of where I can learn something every day while getting to spend the day listening to Arcade Fire songs. But at the end of the day I don’t know if it means I’ll have any legacy (and I still can’t answer Renee’s age-old question of whether or not work is bringing me closer to a state of grace.) The good news is that everything that I have done up to now has put me in a position where I can do pretty much anything that I would want to. I just have to find the courage to face the unknown.
No comments:
Post a Comment