1963: A Summer of Opportunities
As I sit through our quarterly meeting at work, the HR representative goes through a slide full of names with a title specifying x number of years. The titles of the slide begins with 5 years, and continues on at multiples of 5. There were 3 full slide decks with service anniversaries, congratulating each individual who had been working at the company for the x amount of years. The list of names grew as the number of years grew, and started to shrink as you approached 20. As she introduced each new section of service anniversaries, the applause and admiration start to auto-pilot and the expectation of seeing the trend of the number of names get smaller is expected. Then suddenly, a curve ball comes at you, and you are humbly reminded to never assume. 35 YEARS appears, and as hinted, it was the longest list of names just yet! 15-20 people listed. A few familiar names who I would guarantee would work here for another 20 years!
I had heard many times from people on my team that the years just fly by when you're working, and how years of working here gets jumbled into different experiences that make you feel like it's been shorter than you realized.
Of course, this got me thinking about the last 2 years of my life and where I have been after college, and where I plan to direct my life in the next 2 years. Looking at the list and seeing how long people worked in the company, while hearing how quickly it flies by and how unexpectedly it does, motivates me to not want to skip a beat of every opportunity that is presented to me. I want to be sure that I am meticulous at my present job, and mindful of what I am doing so that it can prepare me for the next 2 years. I don't want to constantly be thinking about what I will be doing or where I will be going in the next 2 years, but I want to make sure I am aware of each step I take now and how that will move me towards the greater life goals I hope to achieve.
Of course, all this self reflecting meant I needed to pick a good man's brain...
Me: Where were you during the summer you were age 24? What did you learn about yourself, or life during those months?
Papa: That was 1963. [A] great year because I had passed all my preaxams which were the hard[est] part in engineering in Aachen. I knew I [would] make it as [there is a] 70% fail on this hurdle. So i made a 2 month internship in Manchester, I took the position as Senior (President) in Hubertia (what he's described to me as a sort of fraternity/hunting club). I had great hunting adventures, I was in love with my future wife, and things were the first time looking settled as planned. My scholarship was sure for the rest of the 2 1/2 years to go, and I knew I never wanted to be average or normal. I wanted life on the exciting side not risky but upper class.