Yesterday, T and I caught up with our friends, the Sgwentus, in South Africa after not speaking with them for a number of months. We’ve been meaning to call more often, but we hadn’t made space in our busy lives to actually do it.
Whenever we talk to them, I feel great love and joy. The 8000 miles between us melt away. We are truly fortunate to know such wonderful people and be a part of their lives. With them, I have experienced some of the most profound and meaningful parts of my life. With them, I feel like I contribute something greater to the world.
After hanging up the phone, I am always filled with conflicting emotions. I long to see them, and to be in South Africa again. I want to reach out to them in so many ways, and be in their world day in and day out. I want to wave a magic wand and big wads of cash and make life easier for them and provide more opportunities.
I want to scream at the world to pay attention to Africa, have true empathy and engage it on its own terms, not force our values and ways on it. I want my friends and family here to experience the beauty and the music, to somehow sample what it’s like to live there, to be a native of the culture, not just a visitor or gawker.
And I reflect on how much of my day to day life seems trivial or petty. How much of my time is spent just getting through each day, dealing with small issues like customer service at Best Buy or beltway traffic. How much of my income goes into being an American consumer. How little impact I have with much of what I do.
However, I realize that this is a false dichotomy. I feel that each of us makes an impression on the world with both our large and small acts. Our life, our narrative, has meaning and interest as a whole. Those day to day moments accumulate to be a story, demonstrate purpose, and leave a legacy.
I have a romantic notion that I live an Epic Life. My relationship with Teresa. Our friendship with the Sgwentus and our times in South Africa. Warm and supportive family. The strong ties with other good friends that survive distance and time. Radically changing my career from engineering to sales. Flunking out of college but succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. These are the chapters in the Epic.
Much of my writing here, much of my mundane day to day activity, the individual conversations with individual people, make up the phrases, sentences, and paragraphs of the Epic. I shouldn’t treat them as separate or less.
I’m a fortunate person, and very glad I have the chance to live life like I do. I wish I was more successful at recording more of my Epic here, but I hope you occasionally find something of interest in the mundane as well.
