A Little Inspiration

Man, I nearly lost it at work this morning.  I swear, some of these kids are getting more vacuous and annoying every year.  Or, maybe I'm just beginning to lose what little patience I have left with other people.  I'm really beginning to grow tired of my job and grow out of it.  And I know I'm overqualified for it.

However, I'm not terribly upset.  Because finally, the walls are coming down.  I'm not running from something this year; I'm running to something.  I have finally pulled through my crises.  I have finally found answers that work for me.  

I don't know what work I'm going to find this year.  But I know I'll be taking a step forward and a step up.  And then grad school.  And then a career, hopefully, living overseas.  And I want to do small projects on the side:  like learn to trade stocks, or invest in real estate, or create a small business or restaurant, or write a book.  There are so many possibilities available right here and right now.  There is so much more to life than a 9-to-5 drudge.  All you need is exposure to new things—and a willingness to try them—and a whole world opens up. 

Intelligence makes all the difference in the world, and you need to surround yourself with it.  You need to seek out people who are making a difference in their own lives and also in the lives of others.  Because these are the problem-solvers.  These are the people who make it out of their slumps.  These are the people who can get the country and the world out of its ruts. 

And that's all we're going through right now:  a slump.  We—Europe and the United States—have gone through many changes in our culture and our industry in the last two centuries.  We have had a long day and are ready for a good night's rest.  I don't know how long that rest will be:  perhaps a few decades, perhaps a century or more.  However, we go to rest now to rise again later.  That is just what I did over the last five years. 

In fact, I'm very excited.  Even with rising costs such as education, taxes, and health care, I now know of a few ways of achieving what I want in life—ways that are more conducive to my own personality than the ones I imagined in my teens.  Of course, I still imagine myself as wealthy and famous.  I have always imagined myself as one day becoming wealthy, famous, cultured, and well-traveled.  I've worked on the cultured part.  I've begun working on the well-traveled part.  Now I'm going to continue working on the traveled part and begin the wealthy part. 

I am now going to close with a story. 

Once upon a time there was a young clerk who worked for the Russian government.  He had loved music as a child and always showed musical promise, but for now he worked at a desk, pushing papers all day.  He was not happy with his job.  In fact, he was so bored with it that one day he added a little spice to his life by crumpling up an important document and eating it. 

Julia Child always recommends a little mustard
with important documents.

That was when he decided to pursue his love of music.  He enrolled in the newly founded Moscow Conservatory of Music.  He drank in everything musical and showed such outstanding ability that the head of the Conservatory asked him to teach classes, while still a student.  He was later appointed as a professor. 

While working and teaching, he began to compose his own music.  He wrote a concerto for piano and orchestra, dedicating it to the head of the Conservatory, who viscerally rejected it at first.  Although shaken by the criticism, our young hero dedicated it to another patron, who had it performed publicly.  It met with thunderous applause all over Moscow, and still does.  The young man had finally found his calling and his place. 

Listen to it here. 

That young clerk turned composer was named Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  He went on to write symphonies, ballets, and operas that are loved all over the world.  The story of his success is one we can all remember as people looking for our places in life.  No matter how mundane your current position is, there is always your bliss somewhere, waiting for you to find it.