Our generation was brought up on the idea of meritocracy: always told that if we worked hard, we could achieve anything. And all around us, we saw proof of this. People with simple backgrounds doing incredible things, and altering the planet: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dirubhai Ambani, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg… the list is long. What nobody told you, is the chances that you’ll be the next tech billionaire, are just about as likely as a peasant becoming king in the midst of the black plague.
So as much as these people have achieved, their stories have never meant that much to me. On the other hand, our generation has also grown up with the ability to do what we love. Working 9 to 5 just to pay the bills, hating your job and getting drunk to forget it, are old battle cries, and more people everyday go into work with a strong intent to achieve something: to learn more, to experiment, to grow, to go back to college, to travel, to start something themselves. The subject/career choices may be similar, but I find more people making that choice with gusto.
The stories that truly inspire me, are the people who worked at what they love, and made it the one big step forward. They are not celebrities in the classic pre-rehab, paparazzi, family-drama, tabloid sense; they have achieved a portion of their dreams, and they are well on their way to writing more:
Felicia Day
Image by watsonsinelgin via Flickr
Felicia is an actress/writer. You’ve seen her on Buffy, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog or Dollhouse (Joss Whedon fan), The Guild and Legend of Neil (web series fan), or maybe Lie To Me or House (general television fan). She has one of those straightforward actor life stories going from childhood plays through commercials, and guest spots on TV shows. But her big special awesomeness, is the geekery that drives her and the dedication and love of a fanbase that comes with. She is a big gamer, and The Guild is at least partly autobiographical, which makes all the geeky things she does honest and first hand instead of a reach for marketshare.
Varun Agarwal
Varun co-started Alma Mater, Last Minute Films and Reticular. On top of all that he’s 90 days from releasing his autobiography type book. They’ve all been featured well in articles across local media, so if you’re in India, and have your eyes open, you’ve heard of him. The best part of all this is he’s just getting started. I don’t have wikipedia to help me summarise his life yet, so I’d recommend the book even more. His Facebook notes should give you good reason to not just take my word for it.
Randall Munroe
Image via Wikipedia
If you’re a geek of any self-repute, or know a geek, or just like math, or have ever been in love, or have imagined you may, one day, be in love… you’ve heard of xkcd, and wait for the strips to start your week, mid-week and end-week.
He was an independent contractor, building robots for NASA at Langley… I’ll let that settle in for a bit. And when that ended, he stuck to his side-project full time: a webcomic. The strip has inspired tonnes of real world activities, and even a bunch of easter eggs (notably in Python, YouTube & GNU), and he’s started a bunch of other websites: wetriffs.com, bestthing.info, thefunniest.info … and other similarly spectacular stuff.
Jenny Lawson
Image via Wikipedia
The Bloggess is, well, a blogger and journo, in the increasingly popular mom-blogger space. It’s really hard for me to describe her without using her own words so: “I have friends in spite of myself.” and “Like Mother Teresa, Only Better”.
Wiki tells me she has rheumatoid arthritis, OCD, depression and anxiety disorder and her blog will tell you, that concerns her quite a bit. She apparently gets paid to write about Clown Porn, has started a feud with William Shatner (wiki again), and if you want to be introduced the way I was, and never let her go: start here.
Also, she’s supporting #TravellingRedDress, and you should totally, like, read about that awesomeness.
Final thoughts
So, two chicks, two dudes: four of the people that have heavily inspired me in the last year or so… and who I’ll be watching in the year to come. Do shit you love, it works out great, no matter how small it is in the grand scheme of things… because, you know, bottom line, you’re doing what you love anyway!
Much truth.
Smiles on my face. Thank you for the post.
Inspired!
wel varun agarwal is a very inspiring guy to d cmg gen
though i dont knw abt his lif bt i can see hw he n his frnds had build up alma mater n hw much he had pain n gain building up his company
n i m waiting 4 his book to release coz i m curious to knw abt his lif !