#nakedmanagement

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Comfort is Suicide

Ben can not stop asking: Did you do all the best to evolve life?
I still treasure the memories of our village kids gang mates.
One early morning, we tossed stones at Serge's window to wake him up for a fishing trip. Serge, who lived in the block next to mine, was six years my senior. I can still picture his face and hands, the ones that taught me how to hook a fish. We both ended up falling into the water, but we were proud to show off our trophy fish to the gang and my grandmother. Serge cared for me like an older brother, even though we weren't related. After that, I never saw him again.
22 years later, Serge shoot himself in the head with his grandfather’s gun, staring out of the same window we used to throw stones at to wake him up for fishing.
What could he have possibly seen in that window that drove him to such despair at the age of 35?
Serge was a brilliant individual, having graduated with summa cum laude honors from a top math faculty at MSU. He moved to the U.S. to teach maths at Boston University. At 25, he returned home for a holiday and stayed at his countryside home, or 'dacha'. He was supposed to fly back to the U.S. in a few weeks, but he never boarded that flight. Instead, he chose to stay with his girlfriend, enjoying the comfort of his dacha and the peaceful songs of century-old pine trees.
I believe that after seven years, Serge began to yearn for his career. He was a born champion, destined to change the world, but he realized he had lost his chance to do so. He didn't lose it in a competition, but in the comfort of his dacha. His champion spirit, encoded in trillions of brain connections, couldn't find an answer to the question, "Did you do your best to change the world?"
I've seen this scenario play out many times. Some people didn't have a gun, so they turned to vodka and drugs. You reach 35, look back at your life, and see the wrong answers to the question. Who you are is defined by what you do to answer question.
Ben saw Alex in the window. Over that summer holiday, Serge's
retreated to Alex. But Ben can't die. Ben has survived and evolved over billions of years to create humankind. Each generation, Ben gives birth to a better Ben under the star blast pressure of market competition. If the next Ben is born, all Alexes make way for a better life. All past Bens are Alexes destined to fade with a window glimpse.
The program for the next Ben's birth is in everyone, as we are all past Bens. However, it only self-activates in a fraction of the population. This program is the question, "Did you do your best to try to change the world?" Once activated, it can't be forgotten. If you're reading this, it means the question was asked. The program to spearhead evolution was activated. We are the Ben giving birth to the next Ben.
You can't suppress your nature, and there's no reason to. You can't kill your Ben and live as an Alex. Ben has survived billions of years to create us. Ben is life in the universe. He can't stop asking, "Did you do your best to try to change the world?"
If Ben stops, life in the universe is dead.
Step out of your comfort zone and focus on making a critical impact
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Yesterday, I recalled that fishing day with my brother Vadim. For over a decade I have missed this dacha for 10 years or so.

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