YakShaving

I know this doesn’t have much to do with design or the BOP, but that’s ok.

This post is a bit of an homage to my friend Matt, who I worked with in the Marketing department @ Cerner.

Matt decided he’d quit work and travel around the world for an entire year, to all 7 continents and 43 countries. I just posted to his facebook wall (he just joined the ‘book after he got back to the US) and I realized how much he must have seen and grown as an individual over the course of the past year.. To have the fortitude and resolve to undertake this mission is amazing. The fact that I know Matt personally and can listen to his stories excites me. Maybe because I can live vicariously through his experiences. Or maybe it may inspire me to take a RTW trip sometime soon, hopefully.

Matt’s blog and facebook wall reminded me of one of my favorite quotes (and apparently his) by Mark Twain:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Sometimes, it’s nice to have a reminder (albeit from a dead literary genius) to keep the mind focused on the big picture and not get bogged down by the hectic world around us.

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In other news: I interviewed Victor Lo, CEO of Gold Peak industries and alumni of the Institute of Design today as part of an emerging market research class. It was great to meet Victor and listen to how the design education he received helped him in his career in Hong Kong. I guess he believed so much in Design that he sent his daughter Grace here as well.