When you turn around and ask yourself the question "Is this my life?" One of my (new) really close friends asked me as we were both leaving the Philippines a few nights ago "Do you ever ask yourself if this is really your life?" And my answer is that I ask myself this all the time.
Lucky enough to grow up in beautiful Colorful Colorado with the most loving family on earth, with parents and a younger sister who care about me more than any others in the world. Loving, but also encouraging, supportive, and emotionally, physically, and mentally strong. As just a small example, I was born with 5 grandmothers (my parents' mothers, dad's step-mom, 2 great grandmothers) and 3 grandfathers (1 great grandfather, my parents' fathers) From there, I went to an elementary school and middle school where teachers taught because they loved it and taught well. Then, a public high school that could easily keep pace with many private high schools. And from there, I went to Stanford. For some of my Stanford friends, it was a given that they go to Stanford, or at the very least, an Ivy League. For me, it was a given that I go to some college, somewhere. Only as I approached senior year did I realize that I might be able to go somewhere like Stanford, but it was never a given.
Of course, at Stanford, I had a good time and all, took off a year in the middle and traveled and worked across Southeast Asia. And getting around Southeast Asia was made simple by my involvement in SEALNet. Came back to (Stanford) Paris, then managed to travel the next summer as well to Switzerland, Italy, France, Singapore, Dubai, and spent some time crashing in the Bay Area. Then, I had a senior year that was amazingly fun, managed to get an amazing internship that FOUND ME.
Yes, I interned at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, and they found me. I didn't exactly go looking for anything in particular during senior year, I was actually not really spending enough time on job searching, and then I got an email from Disney (via a professor I was doing research with).
And now, I find myself 2 years later as a full-time Imagineer, and 8 countries further along (China (HK, Macau, mainland), Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Palau, Philippines, Brunei, Myanmar). And of course, when I travel, I simply post on facebook, and I have a whole list of friends to host me, feed me, see that I'm well, and take care of me.
So what's my secret? errrr, I don't exactly know, and that's the thing with the question earlier. When your life always works out well, nearly every time, you enjoy what you do both in your personal life and in your career, what else is there? I suppose I could be in a relationship, but given my last relationship's level of stress and trouble, I'm actually okay being single and moving about by car, bus, plane, train, however, just moving place to place for a while.
So, is this really my life or am I living in a dream? Did I do anything right or did I just get dealt the right cards? Do I deserve what I have or is it greedy to live as I do? I'm not a religious person, so I can't blame a god or gods for my misfortunes or praise them for my successes. I'm not a strict capitalist, so I can't ascribe my successes to my "brilliance" or "hard work," both of which I'm actually pretty skeptical of.
The only thing that I think I've really done right is to try and look after the people around me, to try and make their lives a little better. And I think that this must be part of it all, if you look after those around you (and sometimes those far away from you), you will be rewarded with amazing friends and communities that allow you to reach further than you could by yourself.
And that one thing, that I have many strong communities and friends all over the world, helps me to see that this is my life and that I have only gotten here through the help of many people, starting with my parents and their parents before them. So, as I reflect here at a coffee shop in the middle of the night in the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam on traveling to my 30th country tomorrow morning (Myanmar) at the age of 25, I am able to accept my life as it is and to accept that all of the amazing things I have experienced were only made possible by others helping me.