Life on Accident

I believe Bob Ross had something brilliant in mind, other than his physical work, when he used to say "happy little accidents."

I mentioned in a previous post that most of the interesting things that have occurred throughout my life have been accidental or, at the very least, unforeseen. It's true! From crowd-surfing while passed out (which you can read about here), to being stranded at the Atlanta airport for 15 hours and sleeping behind trash cans due to a power outage, and to co-founding a dating app--there are many moments in which I have invited myself to remember with wonder at each happenstance.

From here, you've probably gotten the hint that if you believe in a higher power, you'll have to be wary of my severe lack of belief in a higher power throughout this post (or more so my lack of regard or care for whether one exists or not). I hope you enjoy anyway.

I dare not explain what's going on here.

Let's start with my very existence. I'm very much aware that I do not exist intentionally, like many of my counterparts, and that idea was once reinforced when I was told that I'm the product of rape (which I can assure you was only said to cause me emotional harm and holds no truth). You can say I'm just a happy little accident in the flesh, and I accept my circumstances because what other choice do I have but also my accidental existence has triggered plenty of other happy little accidents that I can now retell.

When I was adopted by my grandparents at 17 (a happy little accident on its own), I had no idea what kind of opportunities were in store. I knew I wanted to try college but it was only circumstance that would have me in South Carolina where I had not only the Pell grant but also the Palmetto Life Scholarship to get me through college debt-free. Otherwise, I'm convinced to this day I only made it through college because I somehow could write just the right thing in my papers while simultaneously confusing my professors. I scraped by on an average of 3 hours of sleep every night as I was balancing class-time, assignments, student teaching, and a part-time job. There was no way I functioned well enough to actually make sense by college standards. The entire situation lacked sense. 

Who would then have it that, on my way to visit Silicon Valley one December, that I would be stranded at the Atlanta airport the one time it had a massive power outage that spanned the entire building structure and delay/cancel hundreds of flights. I dragged my wheel-less luggage around with me everywhere I went in search of either a place to sleep or something to satiate my hunger as there was no food available anywhere on the premises. It was somewhat reminiscent of what I had already been through as a kid, so sleeping next to a trash can on a carpet at least seemed familiar, and therefore bearable, despite the circumstances. Life clearly prepared me for such random occurrences.

Now for some more interesting stuff. 

When I moved to Mountain View, CA in 2018, I was in disbelief at the opportunity. The Bay Area, particularly Silicon Valley, was one of those untouchable places to live for people of my economic circumstances growing up. When I was a kid, if you went to the Bay Area, especially for college, you probably lived in a house on Sunset Cliffs and your parents were lawyers or had a large inheritance of some sort. You had money, and you had family, and your family probably loved you unconditionally, and you were probably told all your life that you could take initiative and follow your dreams to wherever they may guide you. Yet, there I was, driving up to my new apartment on Escuela Ave. with my tiny Honda full of all of my belongings after 4 days of driving (and a begrudging stop in Vegas), and I was in disbelief.

My connections allowed me a visit to the Apple One Infinite Loop where I had the pleasure of eating dinner in the cafeteria on multiple occasions. Did you know there are actual trees growing inside the building? Has anyone bothered to ask how squirrels got into the courtyard? Steve Jobs was something else. That must be why they have giant murals of his face inside the local shoe shops of Palo Alto.

These all sound like flexes. I don't intend for them to--it's just that when I reflect on the life I thought I would have as a kid versus what I ended up living, it continues to rustle my jimmies in the most peculiar ways--especially because I didn't choose any of these things. At the end of the day, these things don't really matter but then again they do because they mattered to me throughout their occurrences. 

Which leads me to mentioning my experience as the co-founder of an app. 

I promise, on my life, that I never wanted to create an app. I went to school to be a teacher. I never saw myself doing such a thing as entrepreneurship, and I most certainly asked not to be involved throughout the majority of the process. However, in my devotion to being a good partner, and having an idea that ended up being backed by research, I was thrust in this strange entrepreneurial adventure of turning my idea into reality, writing press releases, designing the website, crashing frat parties, making Tiktoks, managing the social media pages as well as college interns, and meeting haughty investors. We had a very miniscule team but we managed to accumulate almost 10,000 users, and although the app fell through for various reasons, I learned a lot about myself and what it means to take initiative during that process. 

I can't even really say that I was good at co-founding an app, but I was good at winging it. Just like I was good at winging college. Or winging existence. 

I didn't earn anything. I did nothing to find myself in strange circumstances like eating at the Apple headquarters, crowd-surfing, or completing college on a few lingering threads.

If you believe in a higher power, you probably think of these occurrences as blessings or that, "God has his hand on me." I would beg to differ. In fact, thinking of them as purely accidental gives life more character and makes me wonder what kinds of happy little accidents my future choices will bring me. 

Do not forget that it was only because of the circumstances in which Steve Jobs grew up and found himself in that allowed him to do any of the things he'd done. The same applies to Bill Gates. The same applies to anyone else famous you can think of. The same applies to you and me.

That's a pretty beautiful thing.

"In both the art and business worlds, the difference between amateurs and professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not."

                    -Amanda Palmer

Song listened to: "All is Love," by Karen O