Success Manifesto

It's amazing! Here I am, 22-years-old, writing a blog entry to many people, most of whom I've met in the past few years. I'm writing this entry at 2am from the world's biggest city in the world's smallest apartment. I live in Spanish Harlem with my girl friend whose my business partner on a socially-active, for-profit company. I'm graduating the Stern School of Business at NYU in a few months and embarking on what seems will be an entrepreneurial career. Who would've thought?

1. Not the 12-year-old basketball player expecting to go to the pros, practicing fade away, game-winning Michael Jordan jump shots until dark.
   
2. Not the grade school student dreaming about Harvard, wanting to make his mom happy.
   
3. Not the lonely middle school student who thought that once he found the person of his dreams, he wouldn't have to work at the relationship and he'd live happily ever after.

Life is nothing but seeds and sun. We plant our life with the seeds of values and visions, beliefs and goals. Sure, we can control what types of soil we plant the seeds in, but can we control the sun? Can we control the clouds, the weather, or the weeds? We live in a dynamic world where we collectively cede control to a large, interdependent system bigger and more powerful than us all. How? Simply by living life and planting our seeds, whatever type they might be, from moment to moment and day to day.

There is a saying that if a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it may result in a tornado in another part. I can only hope that values create value. I can only hope and believe that by being the change I want to see in every moment, that the sun will shine a little bit brighter for everybody.