That being said, I want to be somebody. I have an obsession with climbing the corporate ladder that few will ever understand. At times people accuse me for wanting all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons but in reality, its just a lack of understanding. My parents mean the world to me. They've been everything I've never been, but always wanted to be... They've done well for themselves but I've always felt as if they did a few things that prevented them from ever getting all that they deserved, in my opinion. That being said, I want to climb high enough that my wealth will take care of every need my parents, brothers, or grandparents will ever have. Simple right? It's every kids dream, to be rich.. famous... important? Well, sort of.
Its not just my parents I care about, despite my ability to be very dominate, or at least try to be very dominate... I have a compassion for people. Everyday at work I've learned something new about the human race. And truthfully, its the stories I hear and the people I come in contact with that move me and inspire me in ways I really need at times. They keep me coming back when I really could go find better things. I want to become somebody for these people, they too need the blessings I feel that my parents deserve. They too need somebody to come along and help them out. They've worked just as hard, just as long, and some of them genuinely have had it worse than I could ever imagine. I just want to be in a position to give back. Or at least give opportunity. Surprise hard working kids with scholarships. Give hard working, passionate part timers full-time positions making money that seems insignificant to some but to them it would make them rich. They deserve it. In some circles it would be considered pretty unfortunate and sick for me to gain self gratification and worth by helping out the needy but honest to God I feel like that is my plan in life.
A quote I often look back on is one by Bertrand Russell and it starts off by stating "three passions have governed my life: The longings for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind." I'd be lying if this wasn't what my life is all about. At times it clouds my vision, it causes me to "paperchase", and it frustrates those around me but its me. It's what makes me tick. I dont know how else I am to come up with the money to fund my dream except get it myself, in which case my satisfaction will be that much greater knowing that I earned what I have been able to give.
Now you know what Michael wants with his life. The path to success isn't going to be easy. I'll lose friends, potentially lose loved ones, and at times possibly have to be in areas and situations that were never in my dreams but that's just part of this game. It makes the victory that much sweeter. It's that much more gratifying knowing that I could potentially help somebody avoid those avoidable rough waters. God gave me a passion for people, surprisingly enough to some people, but I really hope that my passion can lead to something tacit. Until next time, I'll leave with two things. Phillippians 3:13; "Brothers I do not consider myself to have grasped it all but what I do is forgetting what is behind and pursuing what is ahead." And finally I'll leave you with the whole Bertrand Russell quote:
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
