“A revolution only lasts fifteen years, a period which coincides with the effectiveness of a generation. Jose Ortega y Gasset.
“There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence.” Charles A. Reich
And to you I say, welcome to the mobile revolution, we are in the inchoate stages of the revolution, so join now.
In one of my previous blog post I commented:
The best gift you can give yourself is the gift of going after your dream instead of living someone else’s’ dream.
Go Live the dream, go on a journey, the rewards will outweigh any challenge incurred in the process, and those challenges are the journey’s rewards.
I have gotten quite a number of e-mails, public and non public twitter and facebook messages alike, I have read the post on the Ansca forum. I have been touched. I am the one, who at the end of the day have to truly thank you for believing in me, and my company and product.
But I don’t want to sound trite, repetitious, boring or sound like a scratched LP (for those of you who still remember what those were), and tell you to go on a journey, live your dream, quote Steve, and others, and tell you to start your own company, but what I will tell you something I learned a while still a young lad.
Having left Nicaragua in 1978, during the height of the civil war, being uprooted from my country and landing in Miami, just like thousands of families before mine, seeking refuge, I learned two valuable lesson from my father.
Not knowing what the true meaning of it all was, the war, a new country, a new language, new surroundings, etc… And not understanding any impact this would have on me, one day talking about what was happening with the old man, I was asking him questions in order to understand what it all meant.
It was a long and painful chat with my dad that day, and he summed up the events quite nicely. He said, and it has forever been edge in my brain, I learned that
“They can take everything away from you, except what is between your ears, as long as you have that, you will always land in your two feet”.
Now I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, this is not about me, it is about you. As long as you are able to put thoughts together, think and learn, why are you still not going after your dream? What do you have to lose?
The other favorite quotation from my dad was best said to me not too long ago. I was frustrated about work at a big Fortune 500 company, and where I was headed in my career. He happened to have been visiting me in Silicon Valley and he saw that I was very frustrated. Nostrils flaring and a vein on my forehead particularly pulsing. He knew something was off-keel.
He asked me what was wrong, and why was I frustrated. I gave him a very curt answer about my current work conditions, career, and the not so bleak future and that I needed to make some decisions and that I was upset because I was not in control.
He was in his late 70’s. He looked at me, and put his hand on my shoulder, and he asked me if I remember my visits to Guanacastillo, his cotton farm, the cotton farm where I grew up, and obviously I said of course I do. He then asked me if I remember the color of the cotton fields, and I do, and I said white. He said, not all the time, you remember white, but there long periods of time when it was brown, and during the drought periods, there were, if at all, maybe a single cotton tree standing up. He then looked at me and said the other thing I learned,
You are in control of your own destiny. When I was working the farm fields of Guanacastillo, I was at the mercy of the weather. Why are you so frustrated, take control, at least, you don’t have the weather to deal with which is unpredictable. You can control and shape your own destiny and future.
Why do I share this experience with you? because only you, not me, not the weather, only you can take control of your destiny and shape your own future. Nobody is going to do that but you.
I have never returned to Nicaragua since 1979. Why? because for me, I hold the past as a memory, not something I long for. I look for whats ahead, I look for tomorrow and what tomorrow brings, and, how I can shape my future and contribute to society and to individuals.
As humans, we put a man on the moon, we have found cures to some of the world’s worst diseases and much more, in short, as humans, anything is possible. And as individuals, the contributions we make to humanity, can be so rewarding that it is amazing.
But today I thank all of you for being a part of my dream. For letting me live it, experience it and share it with you.
Now, go, join the revolution, take control, shape your future and let me be part of your dream.
Carlos.
