Seinfeld and Obama on Staying Grounded by Keeping It About the Work

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Jerry Seinfeld’s episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Barack Obama is predictably great. I highly recommend watching the whole 20 minutes.

I particularly enjoyed the exchanges on maintaining perspective. Seinfeld teased Obama about this throughout, asking him questions about his underwear, emotional eating, raising the heat in the White House, and other stuff that normal people have to worry about.

At the 00:14:35 mark, they started talking about how privilege and power changes you. Seinfeld said, “Privilege is toxic, sadly. Things that people struggle to achieve, they get to positions of power, influence, money, can do things… it has a toxic effect on their judgment.”

Then, Obama turned the tables on him. “Has it happened to you yet?” Obama asked.

“No,” Seinfeld replied immediately and definitively.

Obama kept pushing. He mentioned Seinfeld’s sudden and extreme success — the fame, the money — and he asked, “How did you calibrate dealing with that?”

Seinfeld responded:

I fell in love with the work. And the work was joyful and difficult and interesting. And that was my focus.

Very reminiscent of what Obama himself said earlier this year in an interview with Humans of New York, although in that case, Obama was referring to how you recover from massive failure.

Time

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Photo by Benjamin.

Over dinner, my 11-year old nephew, Elliott, felt inspired to write. This is what he shared:

Time is what makes the universe age. It is what makes us grow up and pass away. You cannot stop it or go back in it.

Time is not good or bad. It is time. Nothing else.

Time will not bend to your needs. It goes quicker when your actions seem fun.

Because of time, leaves grow old and fall off the tree. Time makes us mature… if we let it.

Many wish that time would stop at one point in their life. Is this greed? Is it greedy to have this desire? I, for one, do not know. This point will be argued if you ask multiple people.

Time occurs everywhere. It cannot be avoided. Time will never end. It will not end for you even if you think it will. You will keep aging even if you are gone from the mortal world.

Time with your loved ones is short. Make that time with them count.

Photo by my 5-year old nephew, Benjamin.

Make Something. Don’t Be Nice.

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

sweat_it_out

I’m a private person. Over the years, I’ve found a nice balance between living and working openly while maintaining personal boundaries. I’m consistently surprised by the benefits of being selectively open and vulnerable in public.

My Photo-A-Day project has pushed these boundaries. On the one hand, I’m not that excited by how much I’ve shared about my life, even when they’ve only been tiny windows. On the other hand, what I have shared has resulted in deeper relationships with many people I care about. All in all, it’s been net positive.

Still, I feel discomfort, especially when I’m not feeling great. 2015 has been a stellar year overall, but I’m human, and I have my ups and downs. I’m going through one of those down periods now. It’s nothing serious — no one is dying, thank goodness. I’m going to get through it just fine, and I most definitely don’t want any sympathy. But forcing myself to continue publishing photos that tell an authentic story while also maintaining personal boundaries has been tough. I’ll be glad when this project is over.

I’ve found over the years that you mostly just have to wait out times like these. Sure, I have my coping mechanisms: basketball, music, food, family, friends, etc. They all work to some extent. But there’s really only one thing that consistently helps: Making things.

Make a picture. Make a tool. Write something down. Doodle. Make change. Make music. Make trouble. Make love. Just make something. Express yourself through making. And whatever you do, don’t be nice. Be you. Feel what you feel, and be okay with it.

Serendipity

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Exactly one year ago today, I was on a plane back home to San Francisco, some combination of grumpy and elated. I was exploring the possibility of doing some work with the RE-AMP Network and had made the last-minute decision to attend its annual meeting in Chicago. I was busy and stressed from other work, and I almost didn’t go, but I was glad that I did.

I had met many wonderful people at the meeting, and my mind was buzzing with ideas. But I was also coming down with something, and my plane had been delayed for several hours, much of it while we were on the tarmac, because of one of those darned Midwestern thunderstorms. I was tired and uncomfortable, and I just wanted to be home.

I am a die-hard aisle-seat person, but an aisle seat wasn’t available when I had purchased my ticket, so I ended up in a window seat. We finally took off, and about an hour later, just outside of Minneapolis, I glanced out the window and saw this:

I sat there, mesmerized, for several minutes, before I finally had the presence of mind to pull out my camera and capture this short clip.

As I watch it now, exactly one year later, I am reminded of how I felt and what went through my mind as I witnessed this. I remember thinking about all of the accidental circumstances that had led me to being there at that exact moment, how annoyed I had been feeling a few hours earlier, and how lucky and grateful I was feeling right then. I remember thinking how amazing it was to live in a time where it was even possible for me to be watching this natural marvel from 30,000 feet up in the air.

In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to the RE-AMP Annual Meeting yet again, this time in Detroit. I’ve had an amazing, special year in the interim. I wonder where life is going to lead me this time.

Obama: Keeping It About the Work

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

President Barack Obama on the time he felt most broken, from his interview with Humans of New York:

I first ran for Congress in 1999, and I got beat. I just got whooped. I had been in the state legislature for a long time, I was in the minority party, I wasn’t getting a lot done, and I was away from my family and putting a lot of strain on Michelle. Then for me to run and lose that bad, I was thinking maybe this isn’t what I was cut out to do. I was forty years old, and I’d invested a lot of time and effort into something that didn’t seem to be working.

But the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time that I’ve felt stuck, is to remind myself that it’s about the work. Because if you’re worrying about yourself — if you’re thinking: “Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?” — then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you’ll always have a path. There’s always something to be done.

Via Rebecca Petzel.