I received an email very early this morning from a young guy around the age of 16 who lives in Birmingham, AL. It was touching as I actually lived there for 5 years between 3-6th grade and my family bought a home outside of Birmingham to spend more time with my dad’s parents and grandparents. We moved back to Florida shortly after the death of his grandparents but I’ll never forget how incredible it was growing up and living on a desserted mountain top with a spring, a lake and wildlife. There was even a wild blackberry field and we could fish in the lake.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this guy messaged me and said the following:<\/p>\n
“I follow you on Twitter and your blog. Watch your photos and videos and kind of cyber stalk you among other tech experts. One day I want to move to San Francisco and start a company like you did and mak a lot of money but it would be fun to live in San Francisco surrounded by tech companies and traveling to conferences and meeting millionaires. I remember when you tweeted that you met Kevin Rose and when you had dinner with Al Gore and that time you even met Arnold “the terminator”.<\/p>\n
It’s really cool and when I turn 18, I’m going to apply to go to school in San Francisco and live there. I save every day and really want to do what you and other people like you are doing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I laughed when I read this. Compared to so many people (my peers) in the bay area and in tech, I’m a nobody. Well, maybe not a nobody but I don’t have the status that other people do and it’s mostly by choice as, for me, success doesn’t come easily and others make it look SOOOO easy.<\/p>\n
I have friends that will complete a book every 2 months, have just sold their 3rd company and boasting about getting invited to TED again and having the $5,000 to put down on a ticket to TED. I have friends who eat at fine restaurants, go hang gliding in Argentina and decide that they’re going to take 3 months off and live in their friend’s villa in France drinking fine wine and partying.<\/p>\n
I’m not envious, but I understand that what I need to do to have those things, would require I give up some of the fun in my life now to get those things, which I choose not to do.<\/p>\n
Maybe I’m off on a tangent now but my point is that this letter puts things in perspective. I compare myself to my peers and I see what they get out of their work (return on investment) but I don’t know exactly how to invest to get those things. I’ve worked my ass off (not lately) but haven’t had the luck. It takes a semi-anonymous letter from someone to show me that what I have is luck in order to live here, have people that will pay me to do what I love and to experience life that some people haven’t had the luck or resources to do themselves. Looking from the outside in reveals how lucky I am and I should keep doing what I’m doing and stop beating myself up about my failures and the mountains I’ve had to overcome.<\/p>\n
Thanks everyone for following along on this adventure and to Jacob for reminding me that I have over 5,000 people that are mostly anonymous following along as I embark on mini-adventures every day. Oh and Jacob, I’m not a tech expert. Take care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I received an email very early this morning from a young guy around the age of 16 who…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-motivational","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-ef","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12163,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2023\/11\/12\/life-a-tattoo-story-7-years-overdue\/","url_meta":{"origin":883,"position":0},"title":"Life: A Tattoo Story, 7 Years Overdue","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"November 12, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I lived in Alabama from 1st to 6th grade. 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