Project Vision 21

Francisco MiravalLife has many surprises. On a recent day, without any planning or previous thought, I decided to visit a store to buy some used books, hoping to find at least a good book of my interest. (To be honest, it doesn’t take that much for a book to be of my interest.) At the store, unexpectedly, I was surprised to find not just books, but a group of old friends.I met some of those friends many years ago. In fact, I know them for so long that they have been part of many important segments of the journey of my life. Other friends came to my life more recently, but they still are very important to me.Looking back, I realized I met some of my Friends because somebody introduced me to them. In other cases, we met “by chance,” but “chance” sometimes seems to be guided by some kind of purpose or intelligence.It took me a few minutes to recover from the surprise of unexpectedly finding my friends at that place. However, once I recovered, we began to calmly talk. The dialogue lasted hours and we were able to share information about our lives, our occupations, and our preoccupations. I must confess that, listening to my friends, I am sure that without any exception, they have achieved more than I have “achieved” (please, note the quotation marks.) In fact, they already did more than I can even dream or hope to eventually achieve.Some of them had written many books. Others are now well-established scholars. Some of them travel all over the world and then write about their adventures and discoveries. Others prefer to remain behind a desk (their desk) and from that place they contribute to the betterment of our world.I was told some of them are now in very high position in their respective organizations. For that reasons, I have no doubts they will be remembered and respected for a long time. Others, however, prefer to remain almost anonymous, sharing only drop by drop their matchless creativity.None of them, I think, truly fit in the “normal” molds of our society. However, it seems they have all learned to feign (at least to some degree) how to behave “normally,” so they can live a mostly pacific and happy life, in spite of the unavoidable tragedies. Some of my friends left after our initial meetings. Others were able to stay longer, so we kept talking. We all promise to each other that we would meet again soon. But, even if nobody said it, we all knew that it would be almost impossible to have another meeting covered with the nice flavor of the unexpected. Whatever the case, at the end of the day, while remembering everybody I met that day, I realized how much I could learn and I should learn from each of them. In fact, that’s the kind of friends I like, friends unafraid of telling me the truth, but without judging me.