Category: life

Pivot!

by skyrien

Hello world! Clearly my blog hasn’t kept up with my life, so with major change in mind, here’s an update!

What am I doing?

I am taking a productive sabbatical over the next six seasons to identify, understand, and selectively develop essential traits, skills, abilities. This will encompass the period from September 10th, 2013 to May 23rd, 2015 (621 days – or 14,880 hours). These dates should be easy to remember, but I need to be mindful that I need to make these hours and days count over the long term (window including this time, and subsequent 5 years).

There is much I hope to accomplish in this time. These are in no particular order and more will likely be added until the start of the above period:

1st GOAL: SELF (RE)DEFINITION
Who I am, why I am here, what my life’s service can be to better the human condition. These won’t necessarily all be grand visions of the future. Some of these projects may be more fun-oriented (A happy civilization is a productive civilization!). More importantly, what the next five years of my life following this period (2015-2020) is best fit to be devoted to in relation to the previous. This is an open-ended goal, with the focus oriented on gaining a more perfect understanding of self.

A renewed focus on personal health and fitness is also a priority. My love for sugary drinks so far hasn’t killed me, but I would say that it’s higher on the list of unhealthy habits that I should probably replace. Among others include a way-too-unhealthy love for fast food, which should be replaced by a still-underdeveloped love for cooking. Leaving Microsoft then (with its infinite supply of carbonated beverages and easy fast-food) will serve well. But I think I want to explore further.

2nd GOAL: GLOBAL FOCUS
Identifying and understand my role in helping the challenges that humanity must solve to progress and endure past its thus-far brief existence. This is a multi-part goal, and is meant to be more of a brainstorm to identify and prioritize resources to each goal. During this period, I will focus on emerging problem spaces to prepare and plan for Phase 2 and 3 of my life.

3rd GOAL: COMPLETE FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE
Develop an independent secondary income stream that can cover basic needs. For the purpose of this period, this will be defined as $2,000 USD per month, (cost averaged) over previous 6 months. Success in this goal will allow for continued productive sabbaticals in the future. Expenses should be minimized and focused on long term needs (looking over a period of 5 years). This will allow currently allocated capital to function over this time, and allow larger project spending as needed.

4th GOAL: Relationships
Developing purposeful, lasting, relationships in family, friendship, and community (yes, in that order). There may even be a purpose for a relationship with no purpose; as a control group, of course :).

Current Strategy: Explore, Develop, Direct (EDD)

That’s it for now. To life! Onwards!

NYC

by skyrien

There’s something very magical about the largest cities of the world; whether it’s in Asia, Europe, or North America, every time I’m in one, I’m inspired by the energy of the citizens, enthusiasm of travelers, to a point where I’m completely content just to walk the streets and watch people go about their day. I’ve felt this in Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and now finally, New York City.

Of course, out of all of these, New York is probably the only place in North America that can compare with the other “major” cities of the world in terms of sheer size and pace. The entire downtown of Seattle could probably fit in one East/West strip of midtown Manhattan, and it was incredible seeing endless rows of skyscrapers knowing that there are just as many rows behind them. From the Avenue of the Americas, to the Canyon of Heroes, to Broadway, New York doesn’t disappoint when it comes to showing you how big Manhattan life can be.

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NYC also had the unique feeling of being the Mecca for all things that matter in the mainstream America. San Francisco has it’s tech niche, Seattle has music and art (and some tech), but get to New York and make it big; that is, success in America. Whether it’s in finance, performance, international politics, tech success, culinary mastery, fashion, entertainment, get recognized in New York and it’s the world giving it’s cheers. I’ve got to hand it to New York for being one of the world’s living, beating centers of human existence. I wonder if I would perceive it’s glory if I had grown up there, but for an outsider, taking my first real taste of the city, it’s truly something else, and a place that everyone must see.

That said, in the midst of all things grand, it was still the little, human things that got to me most; The hardworking street vendors closing up their shops; the crazy hobos spreading their the world-is-coming-to-an-end FUD; NYC subway crews smiling (or not) at people passing by, and so on. Instead of being a statistic in a city of nearly eight million souls (something that many from smaller towns seem to fear), each seemed to be raised up by the combined energy of the city.

The most awesome thing is, despite having spent nearly 5 days in New York, it feels like I’ve hardly even scratched the paint; there’s so much I haven’t done there that I know that I’ll have to be back. A month, or maybe even a year. I haven’t seen the nitty gritty yet that I know is out there, perhaps just off on another block, and I wonder if I’ll eventually be disillusioned by what I perceive now to be grandeur, but I’m pretty thick-skinned, and my passions die hard.

And once again, I come back to my life routine, having witnessed something awesome, and inspired by something grand–work is a little more meaningful here, and I’ve been reminded about why I love to travel.

At Times Square, January 15th, 2010 with faithful travel companion @serenastyle
At Times Square, January 15th, 2010 with faithful travel companion @serenastyle

Okay, so that’s enough of my summary, I’ll post more details next.