Over the years people have said things to me that I’ve found interesting, silly, idiotic…. The same experience as everyone else. The things that have stuck with me that help me be a better person are the things that are the most interesting. I was recently speaking with a good friend Marcos Hernandez and he told me a saying from his country “They can’t take away from you the dances you’ve already danced”. Of course it sounds much better in Spanish but it still rings true in English. We were reminiscing about the old days in the NSBU at VMware. I thought of all the things we accomplished and all the fun we had doing it. It also reminded me of things I wish I had done better or had not said. Bridges burned and what not. I feel like I’ve grown since then and figured out a lot about myself and the world around me.
About a year and a half ago Gonzalo Atienza told me something else “We already have the no”. It was in reference to submitting a research paper to an internal developer conference. He was right and we wrote and submitted the paper. We were not accepted due to a number of reasons but if we hadn’t submitted the paper and got the no we would have been worse off. If you don’t try then you will never know if you could have had the yes.
The interesting thing aside from the bits of wisdom from my friends is that they are both from South America. One Venezuela and one Argentina. What I learned today is something that may be obvious to a lot of people. By listening to people with different perspectives than your own you can learn something you wouldn’t have even thought you needed to know. It’s made me understand what many people have been saying for a long time. We should reach out to people of different cultures, genders, races, national origin, religion, and anything else that is different from yourself. Talk with them and maybe see things in a different perspective than your own. You might find something to better yourself.
Anyways. There is my non technical mumbo jumbo.
vSkeeBall 