Julio's Musings

“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly. I’ll do what it takes ‘til I touch the sky and I’ll make a wish, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway.” – Kelly Clarkson, Breakaway

Passion. For some it’s as easy as just doing what you love to do. For others like myself, it’s hard to find what you’re passionate about.

I started writing this post about two weeks ago. I’ve been trying to talk about my passion in life, but when I’ve tried to write about it, I ended up with writer’s block. I just could not figure out how exactly I wanted to write about something that I don’t have a complete grasp on. 

Something changed today, though. Steve Jobs passed away. I was walking home from my run this evening when I got a call from one of my cousins asking me if I had heard about Steve. Since I had been out for an hour and a half, I hadn’t heard anything. So, what’s the first thing I did? While on my Steve Jobs created device called the iPhone, I went to twitter (which apparently is the first place I think of to find major news) and I saw the tweets pouring in about his passing. I then went to apple.com and saw the big banner with his picture and two dates. It was definitely shocking.

When I got home, I sat down for a second and I looked at the Apple website again and I got pretty sad. In fact, a tear came out. This surprised me because I don’t usually cry for these types of things. And yet, I felt like I wanted to. It was at this point that I realized that this man that I had never once met had an affect on my life.

This is also when I realized that he exemplifies the type of thing I want to do with my own life (though on a much smaller scale). This is a man that envisioned where technology could take us and made it happen. Say what you want about Apple products (overpriced, just stealing the ideas of others, only for people that want pretty and shiny things), but these things have had a profound impact on not just the tech industry, but in many ways the world as a whole. This happened because Steve Jobs understood the human element of technology. What good is having very powerful machines that most people couldn’t use? He saw that the software and hardware needed to work together in such a way that the average person could look at what was on a device and have a grasp on how to use it.

I see examples of that all of the time in my own family. My father has never been able to really use a computer, but when given an iPad he can figure out most everything on his own. When my 3 year old nephew can grab and iPhone or an iPad, see the icon of a displeased fowl, press it and start playing, it shows not only how simple and well thought out these devices are, but also how natural they are to use. This human element is a difficult one for companies to figure out, but Steve mastered it.

So what does this have to do with my own passion? I love technology and learning about it. What I also love, and this may come to a surprise for those that always hear me say how much I hate people, are people. Even with so much pain and suffering and murders and theft and destruction and hate in the world, I have such an optimistic view of what this world can be that it’s probably unrealistic. I’ve heard so much talk about the end times approaching, but I still believe that humanity can be saved from its own destruction. This is my greatest hope.

But back to passion. I’m not a visionary like Steve Jobs. I’m not going to create things that will change the way we work and play. What I realize, though, is that my constant desire to know what’s going on in the tech world has given me tons of knowledge that a lot of people don’t have. My education is giving me the ability to do things with computers that some of my peers would find difficult and perhaps a little boring. Honestly, sometimes I find these things to be a bit boring, too. But I am at my best when I am able to use that knowledge to help someone. It’s why I can spend 8 hours wondering why I can’t get a wireless router and a DSL modem to speak, go home and research the answer to the problem I was having, and then travel back the next day to my friend’s house and finally get it working. It’s why I can spend a few hours taking screenshots and writing out directions in a sort of PDF manual so my friend can know the finer details of using her new iPhone. It’s why I have no issues cleaning out viruses from a computer or making a backup of their files and installing a fresh copy of Windows.

My passion isn’t simply technology. My passion is that human aspect combined with the technology. It’s making sure that people can use what they have to make their lives a little easier. It’s helping them to not be scared to do something on their own; to help them know they can do it themselves. It’s also standing back and learning how people use that technology; how they use it to connect and communicate and expand upon their own knowledge. The social and psychological aspects that have changed over the years is so fascinating to me and I could spend hours learning, listening, and talking about it all.

As I reach the end of this post, I’m starting to understand something. I’ve had a grasp on what my passion is this whole time. I started this post trying to figure out what it was when I already knew. The problem with my passion is that there really isn’t anyone for me to talk about these things with. This is the type of stuff that my friends would find fairly boring. That’s okay, though. At least I now know what it is that I love.

I’m going to end this now with one of my favorite quotes from Steve:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address in 2005

I’ve always been a strong believer in following your heart and your gut feelings (aka your intuition). Hopefully I’ll follow my own heart as well as he did.

RIP Steve Jobs