Last weekend at my high school reunion, I tried not to gloat too much about my awesome job building robots. I was so excited to work with my current team and fulfill one of my dreams to work at a startup. This weekend, I reeled from the announcement that roughly 30% of my colleagues would be laid off immediately.
On Thursday evening, we received an email for a team meeting at 9:00am Friday. We joked that this was either going to be great news or terrible news. I was nervous because good news can wait; bad news is urgent. Most of us showed up by 8:50am that morning, but upper management had yet to arrive. At 8:58am, the CTO showed up with flat-packed boxes under his arm and I knew for sure that some of us would be gone. Names were called to divide us into two groups. My group went outside the ranch house we called an office while the other group stayed inside. Those in my group were told our jobs were safe, go home, and we’ll talk next week.
So I went home and rested up to try and recover from a cold I was fighting off for most of the week. On Saturday, I did a deep cleaning of my apartment. By Sunday, I needed to get out. So I got into my car and drove all the way to SeaQuake Brewery. I’ve always enjoyed the kombuchas at this establishment when backpacking in the redwoods and I thought it was appropriate to visit a place built on the ruins of a city destroyed nearly 60 years ago in a tsunami. After getting dinner and knocking back a kombucha, I wandered over to the nearby lighthouse and contemplated what to do.
I felt naked and exposed with the cold wind blowing off the Pacific Ocean. I felt naked and exposed having uprooted my life to gamble on a startup in a city hundreds of miles away from home. I found no answers for what to do next week, but I decided to wake up the next day and hike through the redwoods to the Boy Scout Tree.
Scouting has always been a key part of my life and the values of the Scout Law were ingrained in me: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.
I made lifelong friends with fellow patrol members as we journeyed the path to Eagle together. I even met my first girlfriend I met through the scouting club in college! On the first day of my engineering ethics class, the professor asked, “How many of you are Eagle Scouts?” Several of us raised our hands. “You’ll do just fine in this class and in life if you remember the Scout Law.”
A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent
Scout Law
I’ve always tried to follow these values and make them my own, with two primary caveats. 1) The rules of society should be respected; yet, obedience should not be blind, and some civil disobedience for just causes is necessary. 2) I am not a particularly religious individual and I have more reverence for higher powers in towering forests than sitting in pews.
Over the past year or so, these inherited values have been tested and I realized I need to reassess and be more deliberate with my actions to align my life with my values. As I approached the Boy Scout Tree, I contemplated how I can stay true to these values as the road ahead appeared to be bumpy.
After the hike, I returned to my car and ate my lunch because too much existential thinking made me hungry. I ate my sandwich from the market and began the drive back home. I took the long way going over the unpaved Bald Hills Road. This road is seldom traveled and reveals the high prairies where the redwoods used to tower before they were logged to build the nation. The desolate land contrasted sharply with the towering trees, but manifested a a sublime beauty. Three California Condors circled above the empty plain. These raptors were once extinct, but had recently been released back into these region and reminded me to be resilient.
I meandered on the drive back and my mind was still replaying the decisions that led me to this point. When I get rattled, I have to fight the urge to rewind too far into my past. This time around, I was replaying the decision in my head while I waited for dinner. Without realizing it, I unintentionally wound up stopping for dinner in a small town where I had eaten lunch on a roadtrip 7 years ago after finishing undergrad with my second girlfriend. This time around, I waited alone for my dinner and the loneliness stung. Later that evening, I wound up at a rest stop that shared my first girlfriend’s last name. After wasting too much time rewinding and second guessing every personal and professional decision, I usually reach the conclusion that I always made the best decision I could with the information I had available at the time.
I wanted an “adventure” and I got it. I cannot change the past, but I can dig down and build a better future with the lessons I learned — and am still learning. I keep on bumping into the same patterns and motifs as I reflect on my journey. I worked hard to get where I am today, and I had the good fortune to meet some incredible people along the way. I cannot control how the waves crest and crash, but I can choose to work hard and adhere to my values.
So, after driving through a thunderstorm to get my kombucha and hiking thru the redwoods, I returned home ready to double down, chase my dreams, and soar like the condors. Back to work.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby