These are lessons on how to conquer fear, live up to potential, and cope with change. Lessons that I have been fortunate enough to learn somewhat early in life. I hope you all will gain something from this that you can take with you that will help you deal with these things in your daily lives.
When I was young, I was afraid of the dark. I feared creepy skeletons and short aliens with big eyes just out of sight, waiting to abduct and eat me. I used to sleep with the light on or run into my parent’s room in the middle of the night. Luckily, I outgrew this over time, but still had that looming fear in the back of my mind of something unknown, lurking.
Either despite this or because of it, I knew that I wanted to do something to change the world for the better to reduce the amount of pain and suffering there was. In high school I decided I wanted to go into engineering instead of video game development or movie special effects. These things inspired me to create the technology they portrayed. Robotics, exoskeletons, and biotechnology all fascinated me. I came up with tons of ideas for inventions that I felt that I could create if I only tried.
That was the problem back then. Trying. I was smart in high school. Not valedictorian smart, but smart enough that I didn’t have to study much, especially for the math and science classes. This lead me to procrastination and slackery that continued through college.
Fast forward To after college. I graduated from USM with a degree in electrical engineering and went right to work for a small, local company doing just that. I worked on airplanes and sensors and learned all I could about the technology and business. At the same time, I had a sense that I was working on someone else’s dreams and not my own. That was always my problem with motivation. If the task was not something that I was personally interested in, then I didn’t want to work on it. But I knew that I had more to learn before I was ready to start something on my own. There was always an evolving plan to accomplish these goals that I had in my head, but no timeframe was ever established.
The small company I worked for got bought by a large corporation out of New Hampshire and I got less motivated to work on other people’s projects. I felt like Peter from Office Space. I did seemingly less work and got more money for it. They made me into an application engineer and sent me out into the field to work with customers. I was out on one of these trips just after I turned 30 when everything changed.
When I got to the hotel room in Ohio I noticed I had broken blood vessels all over my body. I didn’t think too much about it until a week later, when I was home and they were still there. I went to the doctors, got a blood test, and the next day I was in the hospital and the treatment for leukemia started.
This was the biggest change I had ever experienced in my life. Suddenly, all of my plans for the future disappeared and the only things I could worry about were how many calories I was taking in, what my blood counts were, and if everyone in my hospital room had washed their hands. I went from being a super energetic, healthy person to being 80 years old and bald within the span of two weeks. It took two solid months before I came to grips with my new situation and the fact that I had a 30% chance of surviving the next two years.
I come from a very religious family and most people would become more religious under those circumstances, but I went the opposite direction. Instead of religion, I found biology. I knew it was medical science keeping me alive and proceeded to learn more and more about it. Once I realized the complexity of the cellular processes involved in life and death, my fears went away. I came to the conclusion that there’s no sense in fearing anything that’s out of your control including when you die. You always have the illusion of a future, but you could be hit by a bus tomorrow and all of that would disappear.
This fearlessness and acceptance of my own death gave me tremendous freedom to be in the present. With no future, all I had was right now and I took advantage of it. I would do laps around the hospital floor and chat with the staff. When I was allowed outside I would go for walks in the sun and close my eyes, feel the warmth on my face, and be completely happy in that moment. Every interaction I had with people was wonderful because all I cared about was the interaction itself and the memory that it was creating. I continued to make new friends and came to the realization that you will never be alone if you are a good person and give back to those around you.
I ended up getting a bone marrow transplant after my leukemia came out of remission. A year into recovery from that I was laid off and the department I worked for was shut down. This was a good thing for me and what I would call a crisitunity; the simultaneous instance of both crisis and opportunity. I had not been looking forward to going back and wanted to finally start something on my own so I made the promise to myself that I would not work unless I had a stake in it. I started my first company not long after that and proceeded forward without any fear of failure.
Finally, I feel like I am living up to my potential. I know that I had been through the worst thing that I could experience and lived through it by chance. I could have died, but then again, I could still right this second. Your situation can always change in a moments notice without any initiation on your part and once you realize this life becomes a game. I still have my goals and aspirations, but know that what really matters is how you play and what you give to others.