Jaehwan's Come-to-Jesus Moment

(cartoon from here)

If you talk to fundamentalist Christians, you’ll learn that each one has a story about God’s salvation.  Each person has a testimony, a come-to-Jesus moment, where they “realize” that Jesus died for their sins and that all Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, and atheists are condemned to eternity in Hell for not believing in Christ.  I never had such a moment with respect to religion (I still prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster over the late J.C.), but this week I did have a revelation about life.  My revelation was this: I’ve officially entered middle age, and I’ve adopted the middle aged mindset about responsibility and legacy that comes along with it.

Things are just very different from what they were ten years ago, or even five years ago.  I don’t know if it’s marriage or kids that send a guy into middle age.  I used to value confidence and personal spark in other people.  I still value both, but direction, execution, and endurance have supplanted the other two in terms of importance.  In other words, I value people’s abilities to set goals, fulfill their promises, and keep on running until they hit the finish line, rather than their ability to sprint and change direction.  Sprinting and changing direction are still important, and I think they are absolutely crucial for young people to experience and live.  Older people, however, need the ability to stay the course in what they do.  Otherwise, how can one really expect to achieve anything?  Without discipline, it’s impossible to build anything long lasting.  Without that long term focus, we get caught up on details and never achieve.

When you are young, it’s perfectly fine to run in fits and starts.  It’s good to join and start lots of organizations, and it’s good to learn about what you’re really about.  Date around, and let the world teach you what it needs to.  It’s okay to live in a new city every year; follow life wherever it leads you, and above all, LEARN.  Learn what you’re about; learn what makes you unique.  Learn about your own strengths, and develop them.

Once you hit a certain age–for some it’s older than for others–you need to pick a course and STAY the course.  You need to accomplish and win at something, even if it’s not the first choice of your youth.  This is what the Alpha-Man was talking about in point #1 over here.  I agree with him that 30 is a good age to hunker down.  By that time, you should have picked not just your battles, but your war.

So my come-to-Jesus moment was this: I realize how fortunate I am to be employed in the post-Bush years, and I need to start working more. Stay the course.  My daughter has taught me that I can live on five hours of sleep a night, and with this new attitude, I’m moving forward.  A few thoughts:

A) Kids are expensive.  I’ve got some major, major kiddie expenses coming up in the not-too-distant future.  They’re good expenses though, as they will give my son and daughter opportunities that I never had.

B) Hanging out only with nonprofit activists, I believe, can sometimes create bad habits.  One reason Thymos has been successful is that our people come from a broad section of society.  We’ve got nonprofit types talking and moving the dialogue, but we have business types who are getting things done.

C)  Working in business teaches a lot about people.  There are some real learning experiences here.

I’m going to continue my activist activities, I’ll give up creative writing when they tear the pen (literally, a pen these days) out of the fingers of my dead body, and as far as I’m concerned, this site will be alive and kicking as long as I am, but I also need to focus on business.  With that in mind, I just launched my new business site.  I’ll be using this new blog to talk about finances and living.  Hopefully my political nature won’t slip out.

Here’s Part I of the request, which only applies to some of you: I don’t expect most WOWOs to be applying for mortgages through some dude in Oregon just because I asked, but I do hope you’ll at least think of me and think good thoughts about my efforts.  Feel free to drop comments on my mortgage site too–actually, please drop comments.  And if you do happen to hear of someone looking to refi or purchase a house, I do hope you’ll think of me.  The money will go towards my two beautiful children–which is as good an activist cause as any.

Now many of you don’t live on the West Coast, so….

Here’s Part II of the request: If you live outside of the West Coast (my #2 source of traffic is New York, #4 is Massachusetts) and don’t plan to buy Real Estate here, my services won’t be of use to you.  However, money will still be of much use to people in your community who support activist efforts.  If there are businesspeople in your community who are doing right by your community, support them with your business.  Help them advertise by telling your friends about them. Establish spheres of trust.  We Asian people screw one another too often over money.  We’ve spoken often on this site about Asian investors in film, and I can assure you the same thing goes on all over the place.  Support those who support the causes you care about.  It’s the only way to make these causes work.

Last year, when Thymos invited Frank Chin and Curtis Choy to Portland, we were in the red for quite some time.  We were fortunate that Michelle Ing, a young partner at law firm Crowell-Ing in Salem, stepped up to help us.  Michelle actually volunteered to financially support the cause without us even asking!  Now that’s support!  John and Janet Jay from Studio J also stepped up soon after.  This is not to discount the wonderful government agencies who also helped us–they were absolutely invaluable too–but the private sector really inspired our people and helped us to solicit more donations.  Without courageous Asian American entrepreneurs and businesspeople like Michelle, John, and Janet, we would’ve struggled to pay for what turned out to be one of the greatest events in Portland’s Asian American history.  If businesspeople support the community, we need to support them.  I believe it’s an obligation.  Find them in your community.  They’re out there.

Seriously, our causes are bankrupt, and it’s because often there ain’t no green supporting it (apologies to those in other countries).  We can change this with the way we do business.

Anyway, that’s my two part request.  Hope I don’t sound like I’m panhandling, but this activist just hit a big milestone.  This’ll hopefully be the last time I mention this.

Hope everyone is experiencing good weather (90′s in Portland tomorrow!).

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5. My Older Person's 44s Post