People are always ready to admit a man’s ability after he gets there.
(Source: crossfit.com)
“I need a plan.” →
The hard part isn’t coming up with the plan. The hard part is bearing the stage of “No action” necessary so that the right amount of data can unfold. And then, when you know where you want to go, where you need to be, exactly how you’d like the change to manifest, the steps to getting there lay themselves out the way the Yellow Brick road revealed itself to Dorothy.
Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
Steve Jobs liked my writing. I first helped him out on some of the wording of the original Apple II brochure, and then wrote user and technical manuals for the Apple II, Apple III, and Mac. He had me draft the 1984 Apple Newsweek Advertising Insert when he didn’t like the agency’s writing style (they ended up writing the final copy) and write the Letter to Shareholders in the award-winnng Apple 1984 Annual Report. But in February 1985 he asked me to take on a very small writing assignment, which nevertheless took weeks to get right. After reading the Walter Isaacson book this week I dug out my copy. It’s sad he fell short of the thirty more years.From Chris Espinosa
Imagine for a moment that the life you currently have is taken away from you. Everything in it – gone. And then somehow, miraculously, it was granted back to you.
Now what would you do?
The only real failure in life is the failure to try.
Will you look back on life and say, “I wish I had,” or “I’m glad I did”?
It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.
Two weeks ago I got a call from my doctor, who I’d gone to see the day before because I’d been feeling worn out and was losing weight, and wasn’t sure why.
He was brief: “Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia. You need to enter treatment right away.”
I was terrified. I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.
—
I have a couple more months of chemo to go, then the next step is a bone marrow transplant. As Jay and Tony describe below, minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help.
A few ways to help:
- If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.
- If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event my friends are putting on.
- If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point ‘em to the links above.
*NEW* Organize a donor drive near you (the most helpful thing you could possibly do!) email 100kcheecks@gmail.com. They’ll send you kits, flyers, tell you what to say, and make the whole process easy cheesy.
My friend Amit Gupta founded my favorite photography site Photojojo. A few weeks ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Amit is one of the nicest, most genuine, most creative people you could ever meet. Prior to founding the awesome Photojojo, he also co-founded Jelly in 2006 in NYC, a coworking community, that’s now spread to 60 cities across the world and helped spark the coworking revolution. It looks like Amit will need a bone marrow transplant quite soon. We can help him with that.
Unlike blood transfusions, finding a genetic match for bone marrow that his body will accept is no easy task. The national bone marrow registry has 9.5 million records on file, yet the chances of someone from South Asian descent of finding a match are only 1 in 20,000.
This is where we come in. We’re going to destroy those odds.
How? By finding and registering as many people of South Asian descent as we possibly can.
Tests are easy– a simple swab of the cheek. If you’re a match, the donation involves an outpatient procedure. It’s not fun, but it’s not dangerous either. And doing it could save a life.
We are encouraging anyone of South Asian descent to take a test to see if you’re a match.
You can get a free test by mail, or, if you’re in New York, you can join us Friday, October 14th for a special party to rally support.
We’ll have test kits on hand at the party, as well as music, booze, and maybe even a photo booth. It will, for the first time, combine a House 2.0-style party with a New Work City-style party, and if you’ve ever been to either, you know they are always something special.
Please spread the word and please do everything you can to help Amit beat leukemia. He’s a superstar.
Much thanks to Tony and pals for organizing this event, and EVERYONE who’s been tweeting and reblogging.
Please help get the word out any way you can. My life quite literally depends on it.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
