Inspiration

Today I went to Phi Beta Kappa's New York networking and reception event.

Simply put, it's an event for a bunch of nerds like myself. PBK (as I only recently learned) is an honors society for liberal arts students who graduated at the top 1% of their class. I didn't know why some of my white friends were making a huge fuss about getting such honors, but today's event opened my eyes.

"PBK cannot be given, cannot be bought, cannot be stolen, and cannot be endowed to someone. PBK can only be earned, and only through hard work can one earn PBK."

Sure, there are a lot of things that money cannot buy, but it only sank to me how much meaning I get after knowing that I had obtained something money cannot buy. Sure, it may be an elitist piece of paper worth nothing, bla bla bla, but I guess this is something I can happily (and proudly) say that I have accomplished. I guess I really love the idea of meritocracy, and it still lives strong in me :)

Work has been interesting, and I have been loving my colleagues. I am grateful, immensely so, to be in New York. This is such an exciting time to live, but at the same time, I am aware that there are still plenty, plenty of interesting things out there to pursue, long ways to go to continue developing myself.

As such, going to such events is helpful because it reminds me one thing: I need to stay inspired.

Man cannot live on (rice) bread alone, or so they say. I want to continue loving my job, I wish to continue contributing to the firm, and I want to be ready for my next one. So today, I brought home three takeaways from the speakers: 1) It would be cool if I improve tremendously my communication, expressive, and negotiation skills. 2) It would be cool if I get a mentor, who I respect, admire, and inspire me. I hope s/he is ambitious enough and I get infected by that passion. 3) It would be cool if I spend my time to develop the vision of what I truly want and where I truly want to be. As it was said: If you can't see it, you won't be able to be it.

A bonus takeaway is to learn to take "yes" as an answer. It was said that the only reply to a "yes" is a "thank you!". :) It's funny how these high achievers have the same problem - they are all exceedingly harsh on themselves.

I am grateful to be here, right now. I think this is a great time to live, with me being young and healthy and productive, living in New York City where everything happens and access to resources is easy, where my family is loving and healthy, my parents still very young and thus there is no pressure to settle down or get married. I can take my time to develop myself, to meet new people, and to learn as much knowledge as I wish. I am grateful that I make more than enough money that I can save, and I know, that I will have significantly more (and that there are more in store for me too). I left that meeting excited, I would love to continue working on my trading/options knowledge, business cases, statistics/comsci learning, finance and networking, real estate, and whisky (or red wine or sushi)!

Thank you, and I love you. I'm going to continue giving it my all!