Success Manifesto

On my way home from visiting my family and friends in New Hampshire last
night, I had a few crises and realizations that I’d like to share: Crisis 1: I
needed to get back to New York by Sunday morning, because Michael and I have a
friend from Holland coming to visit us. I needed a ride to Boston so that I
could catch a train back to New York, but this had turned out to be more
difficult to arrange than I had thought it would be. Crisis 2: I lost my wallet
– which had everything in it: credit cards, driver’s license, school id,
insurance card, library card, social security card, gift cards, money… Crisis 3:
As I was going through Connecticut (2 hours into my journey) I realized that I
had the keys to my mother’s car which I had been using while I was visiting. It
was her only set and she had reminded me of this and how important it was that I
not lose them many times throughout the trip. She had no way to use her car
without the keys. Realization 1: I am richly blessed with the best family and
friends anybody could ever ask for, both in New Hampshire and New York. My
mother and my amazing friends Audrey and Steve all spent so much time helping me
look for my wallet and put things in perspective. Audrey gave me cash to take
the bus and Steve drove me to Boston. My mom called this morning to say she had
found my wallet. Michael created a relaxing atmosphere with candles and soothing
music to calm me when I got home. They did all of these things for me, but what
really made me appreciate them was all the unconditional love I could feel.
Realization 2: Logically, I knew the whole time that these problems were only
trivial. I’ve dealt with issues thousands of times more serious than this in my
life and I know that there are people who deal with problems thousands of times
more difficult than I ever have! But there are times when logic just goes out
the window, and you have to just trust that life will take you where you need to
go. Realization 3: It’s really amazing to me how much we rely on little plastic
cards for so many things in our lives! With my wallet gone, I told myself how
all I had really lost was some plastic and paper but thinking about all the
things that stuff symbolized: my identity, money (which in itself really
symbolizes anything you can buy), it didn’t really help. It’s very interesting
to think about how much we rely on these things that didn’t even exist a couple
hundred years ago.