Speech Two: Because I Choose To

Frustration

These days I experience a lot of frustration. Everything I do is wrapped up in confusion and second guessing.

As an example, consider this speech. I thought about it for at least 3 weeks. Pondered for a while, contemplated some more, and as the deadline approached I began generating ideas like a chipper spitting out a used Christmas tree.

I know this much: I've got something to say. But because of the confusion I feel in my life, I don't know what it is.

Almost every aspect of my life has been touched with a similar confusion. Some would say I am having an existential crisis. In other words, I do not know why I am alive.

And I am so frustrated! Despite not having a clear purpose, I still have an intense desire to live a meaningful life.

To produce meaningful works. To do meaningful things. To deliver meaningful speeches.

What I would like to do today is talk about how I got to this state of mind, express how I feel now, and share my hopes for the future.

Where I began

When I was younger, I never really thought about meaning. Life was just what it was. I went to school, did my homework, played some games. I just accepted what I was given. Did what I was told. I didn't have much choice.

But something changed in my second year of university. I discovered that I had a choice. I didn't have to be slogging my way through a textbook on Discrete Mathematics, I could to the bar instead.
I started to question what I was doing in university at all. But as soon as I questioned, I got afraid, afraid of the uncertainty of the world. After all, if I left school what would I do? So I just put my head back down and worked my way through Engineering.

But about a year after graduating the questions started bubbling to the surface again. Why was I designing telecommunications equipment anyway? Who really cares what a 40Gigabit long haul fibre optic system does? As far as I could tell it only helped the telecommunications execs earn higher profits.

I started to think of leaving engineering for a while and going to teach or volunteer in the third world. Do something "meaningful" with my life.

But again the fear crept up.. and I held off.

However, by the end of 2001 life got really messy for me. A choice was made for me that I really wasn't ready for: I got laid off as a part of the infamous hitech bust of 2000.

The turning point

Something worse happened back then in 2001 -- at the time that I had the rug pulled from beneath my feet I also began to feel intense anxiety.

Prior to 2001 I was developing a dream to go live and teach around the world. Spend a year in China, then move onto somewhere else in Asia.

But when I had the dream forced on me, my body and mind didn't like it much. Didn't like the uncertainty, the loss of direction, the limitless choices. I had wanted to choose another path, but clearly I wasn't ready to be on it.

Over the next while I discovered that I had entered into a forest, dark, shrouded in fog, and without boundaries. I've been stuck there for 9 years now, wandering around inside of it without a compass…
I have since become deeply aware of the fact that I do not have an internal compass – I do not have a purpose or meaning in life. In fact, I do not even know what is meaningful to me. I do not even know what I like.

Can you imagine the difficulty and frustration I feel, each and every day, when I get up and realize that I just don't know what the hell I'm doing here on this planet? How am I to put together a coherent speech when I don't know even know what I am trying to accomplish by giving the speech? All I know is that I want to say something. All I know is that I want to keep living.

Have you all heard of a movie called The Matrix? Near the end of the final movie Agent Smith and Neo enter into their final, epic, battle. At one point Smith makes a speech that resounds so deeply within my soul, speaks so accurately to my struggle.

Agent Smith

Smith says:

Why, Mr. Anderson?

Why, why, why?

Why do you do it? Why? Why get up? Why keep fighting?

Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival?

Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?

Is it freedom… or truth? Perhaps peace could it be for love?

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose!

And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although … only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.

You must be able to see it Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting.

Why Mr. Anderson, WHY? WHY DO YOU PERSIST?

And Neo says… Because I choose to.

Choice

I want to so much to be Neo. I know that I have choice, but unlike Neo, I am not comfortable or content with that choice. Choice and freedom, ironically, are extremely scary for me. Because with choice comes responsibility. I am responsible for the life I choose. And I'm afraid that I'll make the wrong choice.

I so desperately want to feel the contentment of knowing that I have chosen my mission.

My dream is to be able to at last find the mission that I'm on in life. To be able to see the target and devote myself whole-heatedly to achieving it.

I want that feeling of accomplishment.

I want the feeling of having all 8 cylinders firing in synchronization. To feel the power of success and know in my heart I am working on creating something that means so much to me.

I feel that my mission today was quite selfish. Rather than create a speech with my audience in mind, I wanted to create a speech that gave me the opportunity to express the emotion that lies within me.
I had so many options and directions I could go, and the process has been exceedingly frustrating. And all along I was afraid of making the wrong decision.

But now, at the end, I can say, with contentment in my heart that I did this speech,

Because I chose to.

~Dave Brown, November 24, 2010