August 2, 2012

Mission Statement

When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.”
(Lao Tzu)

 

One of the most important tasks I want to complete in my (almost mid-over) twenties is writing a mission statement.

The inspiration for this boldly going where no others that I’ve known endeavour, ie. the listing to brainstorm a mission statement was Letters of Note recent featured post on Bruce Lee’s definite chief of aim, where he described what he wanted to accomplish in a brief timeline, that ”
I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.” (Bruce Lee, Jan. 1969)

The mission statement that I have written is listed is as follows:

1. I want to shoot film photographs and movies like Wong Kar-wai, mysteriously smile like Greta Garbo, fashionably dress like the characters in Paradise Kiss, write an influential novel like Jack Kerouac and laugh at life’s idiosyncrasies like Calvin&Hobbes.
2. I want to work at IDEO and Wieden Kennedy. And climb Mt. Matterhorn like the Dharma Bums.
3. I want to be a design researcher and focus on the Sapir Whorf hypothesis and how it affects the foundation of the encoded language of the world wide web. I want to know how and why we choose the semantic markups that we do to create websites, to translate the binary language of the computer to a syntactic markup that we recognize as “language” on the computer’s screen.
4. I want to meet the founder of Ruby on Rails and read the novel Babel-17 that inspired their creative process.
5. I want to design people’s thoughts and relationships and recognize their cognitive processes. I want to let go of the physically designed tools and hang onto shaping/recognizing their pattern of thinking. I want to
6. I want to learn how to let go of negative emotions and negative-directed people. I want to learn contentment.
7. I want to visit the wreckage of the Titanic and Mariner’s Trench someday.

Overall, I believe that every person has the ability to have agency over the outcome of their life: the choices that govern how we behave in repose to a problem, situation, or events, in addition to the actions that follow after the event occurs.

However, hindsight is 20/20. Each day of our lives, we are dealing with problems, perceived weaknesses, and general human infallibility, often at the mis-guided sense that someday our problems will “end”, when in reality, our battles with our inner demons will continue until the day that we die. It is the armour and weapons that we carry within ourselves, that determine the strength of the perceived foe. For has it not been said that “I have seen the enemy, and it is I?”

Human lives are a series of interesting choices, and the journey is of more importance that the destination, which is death. However, how we choose to live our life is our decision and nobody else.

I believe that each person has agency over actions and choices that happen on an every day occurrence.

These mental thought processes are often occurring at a subconscious level, and often we are not realizing that a decision has taken place because our relationship with life since birth has consisted of taking action and creating or limiting our choices throughout our everyday chores, conversations, tasks and activities.

In fact, one of main irks that I’ve experienced this semester with working with a group project where everyone would say one thing and do another, such as scheduling meeting times or failing to accomplish goals they had set for themselves.

I can understand that sometimes life and the choices that we make towards our stress-free happiness and peace of mind are important, but these “excuses” are a sign of character: those who are dictated by the unreliable words they say have no reliability or direction over their lives. Telling another person of your criticism of them is only beneficial towards self-analysis and not when it is an description.

After observing and recognizing these traits, such as lack of punctuality towards time, un-kept promises, and excuses instead of action, that have occurred again and again with my other friends and coworkers, I have decided to focus more on shaping my SELF character’s and integrity, to be accountable for my word and actions.

For really, that is all that I can do.

It is not my place to shape or change other people, for who am I to criticize other people for the failure of actions in myself? However, what I CAN do to influence those who look up to me and not let them down by leading them astray. I will maintain my small circle of influence and do the best that I can be, to best person that I can possibly be, by being myself and holding up my sense of truth, honour, justice and integrity for myself and not others.

For when we die, which every human will do, someday, the only thing we can truly take with us is the memory of us that lives on in others, our friends and our family.

Our immortality of living on in the memories of others is the goal I want to focus on, and hope others will learn, and live from these ideas, too.