I'm not a fan of parties and so for the past few years, I've opted instead to observe birthdays with a celebration of intellect. At 21, I shared 21 lessons from my inexperienced life, at 22, I spoke about NASA and the need for attention to detail. At 23, I spoke about the insanity of hope. I'm 24 today and I want to talk about balloons! Yes.
Today, I want to share with you one of the profound lessons from my CLP journey. Let's talk about our balloons for a second.
In late 2021, I and other CLP fellows went to a CLP camp as part of the program. During an icebreaker of one of the sessions, the instructor led us through a rather interesting exercise. She handed each of us a balloon and asked us to blow it to an acceptable level. Then, she handed all of us pins/toothpicks and drew a boundary that no one was supposed to cross.
The instructions were simple. The last person(s) with their balloon(s) still intact after a set time would win a precious box of chocolates.
"Pimmmm!" the whistle went off, and you can imagine the chaos that ensued. I and the other fellows chased each other down, trying to burst the other person's balloon while preserving our own. I won't bore you with the remaining details, but all of the balloons got burst in the process, leaving all of us with nothing by the time the dust settled.
"What had just happened?" Our instructor quizzed us in amazement, and we couldn't help but murmur among ourselves.
Apparently, the chaotic attempt to burst the other person's balloon to win the prize had clouded us from really listening to the conditions for winning. We had failed to pay attention to the fact that "the last person(s) with their balloon(s) still intact after a set time wins a precious box of chocolates."
This meant it was entirely possible for everyone to have gotten a piece of the chocolate box's contents if we had stood there and waited for the time to pass. We can talk later about our unfortunate selfishness, but today is not the time.
I'm not a chocolate fan, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if we had collaborated and worked together instead of competing with each other. We could have all won a piece of the chocolate box's contents and ended up a chocolate piece richer.
We find ourselves in a very critical stage in modern history and everything, as we've known it, seems to be crumbling. The pandemic has had ravaging effects on the global economy, our government seems like a hopeless mess, there are little to no opportunities for the youth, AI is living up to its promise of fundamentally changing how we do things, and we're in a saddening financial crisis, I could go on and on.
But now is not the time.
The quickest way out of these trenches might be judiciously following the "each man for himself, God for us all" mantra. But I am here to present a counterargument. What if we learnt from my CLP balloon experience and teamed up with each other to work towards some of the pressing challenges around us? This time, we're not fighting for chocolates, but for survival.
The days of being the change we seek in our small corners are dying out and we are in a new era of collaboration. We are in an era where we have no option but to join hands, share ideas and put resources to tackle the challenges we all face once and for all. We're tired of not having hope or reasons to have hope.
And so today I am challenging you. Find 2-4 like-minded people around you and choose to address any challenge of sorts. It can be big, it can be small. It can be building a hospital, it can be offering to teach young children in nearby schools.
But by all means, choose to work together towards something. There is beauty in mutual success and we choose to work together in this era. We've got this, people!
And on this inspiring note, Happy birthday to me!
