I sat on the kitchen counter shaking my legs nervously, waiting for a reaction from my parents. I had just told them that I was going to leave the country for good. I was moving to Colorado thanks to a job opportunity there. It was the early 1990’s.
In 1956 my parents had also made an international move, from Hungary to Venezuela. The country where I was born and raised.
Silence. My dad was the first to speak. “I understand you,” he finally said. “When I left Hungary, I was just thrilled going to a place where all I had to do was to work hard to have the life I wanted.” The implication being that, to a degree, history was repeating itself. I nodded, slowly.
Later…
Much time has passed since then; I am grateful to have been able to build a career and a life in this opportunity-packed country. Working hard was never a problem for me, but I cannot say that what I built was only up to me. Great places to work, luck, some fantastic mentors and a few bad choices that turned into great lessons put me where I am today.
Continuing the journey that I began back then, I am now starting a new leg by moving away from a great and stable job to pursue my own ventures.
Yes, ideas abound in my head, in carefully organized spreadsheets and in my many notebooks; but one thing is clear: these ideas are worth little. I understand that execution is 99% of the work ahead. That excites me.
To travel or to arrive
Execution excites me because for every idea, there is also a choice of “how”. Choosing a how starts the travel down a road to get to the destination—and there are many more choices regarding roads and travel than ideas themselves.
The stories about past victories I share with friends and colleagues are not about how cool an idea was, but about the sweat and tears and blood we shed getting somewhere. Reminiscing the messy journey, and how often we got lost looking for the destination, is what makes us laugh and order another round of beers.
How boring and depressing if every idea we have could be magically instantiated by just thinking of it! For it is better to travel than to arrive.
One of my favorite poems “Ithaca” from C.P. Cavafy captures this notion beautifully. Fragments below.
As you set out for Ithaca
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
<…>
Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.
Blue sky
It is a gorgeous spring day and I sit at the library. As I write these very lines, looking out the panoramic window I can see Denver’s Front Range. Above it, blue Colorado sky. The blue is intense and deep; it reminds me of the bright blue glow of the water used to store spent nuclear rods (1). There are some sparse clouds; one of them looks like a gigantic corkscrew. Although I sit in the shade, the sun that comes through the window reaches my keyboard and warms my hands as I type. This moment is all-right. It is success. I won’t let anyone to tell me otherwise. And I am overcome with the certainty that whatever happens next, pleasant or not, will be alright too.
(1) Oops, I couldn’t stop the nerd on time. Apparently, this blue is due to the Cherenkov Radiation. “Why Is the Water Blue in a Nuclear Reactor? Cherenkov Radiation.” ThoughtCo, Jan. 22, 2019.