What a difference a day makes

Sunday, October 25, 2020

On Friday afternoon, October 23, 2020, I learned of a new program at work. It is a program that recognizes technical leaders and creates a path their leadership, different that the traditional people leaders. Also announced was a mentorship program, one in which a colleague and I tried to initiate but were not successful, maybe we didn't do enough homework, and didn't give it enough energy, that was more than a year ago. In any case, I was excited about the prospect of being a mentor as well as a mentee. As I think more about, I needed to see if it fits my mission in life, my go to tool for keeping my "true north". More thinking and wanted to think how it may affect my ikigai, my life balance, my priorities at this stage in my life. I was also exploring AI and machine learning, and was intrigued with how we humans will deal with more and more automation as well as training machines how to be human. Then I started thinking about our digital twins, the electronic manifestation of our consciousness as human. With that, this website was born. I continued to create the site beginning on what the site is all about, and begin with the end in mind, what is my life's mission. I was working till the wee hours of Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, still polishing up.

This morning, Sunday October 25, came and I received a phone call from my friend Crispin that our mutual friend Jimmy from high school had passed away. We were both devastated. Suddenly the world seem to have crumbled. Luckily, I had Liza, Jimmy's wife's contact info as she had sent me a message earlier in the year as she was planning a surprise 60th birthday for Jimmy in September if COVID-19 subsides by then. (We now know it didn't and surprise, the big surprise party didn't happen.) I had texted and tried to console her. We texted throughout the day, probably a good method not having to hear quivers in each other's voice. In the meantime, I am glad that I had recently updated my mission statement, it had made it a little easier for me to deal with the loss as I've written "don't let our past define us". To take positive steps today.

In memory of my mother who passed away in June, a good friend from college, Vinny, who passed away in July, and now Jimmy, although I am in grief, I had to eat my own words and move forward. I am now channeling that accumulated and refreshed grief, to make best of the bad situation, hoping that since having started this blog with my mission in life and learning to move on from grief and depression, that it may help others as well and consequently help me fulfill the part of my mission statement with the phrase "help inspire others to do the same".

I therefore urge you all "To Love, to learn, to find joy in life's simple pleasures, and make meaningful contributions in such a way that may help inspire others do the same."