It’s all about persistence!
Posted On Thursday, March 26th, 2009 By Jay
A curious event transpired today. A semi regular partly cloudy day in Upper New York state, regular work conversations, some loud, some hushed. All work related as we approach a green light build.
At work we use scrum. Its not news since many IT companies use scrum in some form or another. What is important is that lately more and more producers are carrying around net books. I recently purchased a net book as well, I love it. For many moons I’ve been requesting the Johnny Lee Setup in each room. I regularly hold conversations with my co workers about the wonders of a touch screen monitor as a white board.
Need to hold a brain storming session? Use the “white board” then email yourself the image or text. Need to organize scrum tasks in a way that doesn’t use a bazillion stacks of paper? Use a touch screen.
The above isn’t necessarily about persistence directly.
Today, a new path was taken. A new branch in the virtual white board space also known as virtual reality was championed. Today, my lead engineer brought up Minority Report. He brought up creating, not using, the virtual 3d interface used by Tom Cruise. I fire off a comment that it will take slightly more technical expertise than I currently possess. What happened next floored me.
“Naw. It’s all about persistence.”
No judgement. No problem solving. No pie in the sky. Not even a “Get your heads outta the clouds.” Just a gentle, “You could do that if you wanted to. You just have to want to.”
I immediately wrote it down. Immediately my mind began to possibalize. Normally this wouldn’t be significant, unless you happen to be Meditating in the Gap, Learning about the Secret and generally creating a space for possibilty in your life.
In one instant I was waylaid from multiple angles. Flooded by my accomplishments, lessons learned, past history, future wants and the immediate present.
“It’s all about persistence.”
3 years and 3 months ago I chose to follow a dream. I dreamed, since playing Battle Chess, that I wanted to create video games. For 3 months I researched, pursued, had a burning desire with all my heart to create video games. For 3 months I turned off all my video games and devoted myself to game design. I saw myself walking to work making video games. I dreamed about making video games. I devoted myself to absorbing everything I could from the interwebs about creating games. Designing games and learning about game mechanics.
3 years ago because of that burning desire, I interviewed and was offered a position as a Game System Designer. 3 years ago I took the first step into the world of my dreams.
“It’s all about persistence.” “You can have it if and only if you really want it.” Emphasis my own.
What could I persist in accomplishing? What could you? Where would you go and what would you do? Equally as important is where would I go and what would I do!
It’s all about persistence!
