If you've read some of my other articles, you know one of my beliefs is that the best things in life are also the easiest to get. This short story reflects that.
In sixth grade, one of those fund-raising drives came to our school. You know the type. Enlist the children to go selling stuff door to door and reward them with prizes if they sell a lot- it basically amounts to child labor for pennies, but let's not go there.
The top prize was a ride in the world's longest stretch limo to a theme park. The school brought in a motivational speaker to sell the competition to all of us in the auditorium. It was a regular rock concert, by the time that speaker was done, you had a thousand middle school kids ready to kill and die to sell Spanish food cookbooks. Ain't noone in San Diego gonna be going without Spanish food cookbooks that year, no sir.
For me, the artificial excitement lasted long enough for me to pedal a cookbook off on my mom and another off on the family's pastor. I think my mom still has it, collecting dust somewhere back home. After that I pretty much lost interest and just watched by as other kids gloated about their epic cookbook conquests.
It turned out the ultra stretched limousine was out for repairs on the day of the theme park trip. And according to my friend who went (on the cheap replacement vans), the park was pretty mediocre. Better than a day in class, but not worth selling enough Spanish cookbooks to wipe out the Aztec civilization.
But something made me go and read the fine print that came with the fundraising paperwork. Lo and behold, there was a door prize for selling even just two cookbooks. I think I was the only person in the whole school to claim it. The door prize was an extremely cheap set of three small juggling balls.
Something about those juggling balls called out to the self-teacher in me. I set out, not even thirteen years old, to teach myself to juggle. I started with juggling just two in one hand- tossing one in the air, then tossing the second just before catching the first, and repeating. I got pretty good, and I moved on to three balls. It took awhile, and a lot of drops, but soon I was juggling three juggling balls.
What I got out of that fundraising drive was a lot more than what anyone else at the school got. I got a skill, albeit a somewhat trivial one, but still a skill nonetheless. A decent party trick, when you need to whip one out.
But the point is, the best prize was the unadvertised one. It was like a "secret" prize. Isn't that always the way in life!
Fast foward quite a few years to college. I go and hang out with some other jugglers, whip out my balls (I can do four by that point) and start juggling them. Everyone's jaw drops. Because I'm completely 100% self-taught, it turns out I have some crazy unique style that all the cookie cutter jugglers have trouble wrapping their brains around. I don't even know how to describe it because I never had the patience to learn all the official juggling lingo (and believe me, there's a whole language just for juggling). It's just kind of backwards, sort of like the difference between English and Japanese.
That experience was one of my very early experiences as an autodidact- an autodidact is a person who teaches themselves something. It worked my autodidact muscles and as such, was a very big lifetime benefit. All for selling two Spanish cookbooks. Fiesta!
Here are some other articles I've written. You can imagine me typing them with one hand, juggling some chainsaws in the other hand, if you like.
The Relationship Between Happiness And Material Success
Typing Faster In T9Word
Learn The Idioms, Not Just The Word
In sixth grade, one of those fund-raising drives came to our school. You know the type. Enlist the children to go selling stuff door to door and reward them with prizes if they sell a lot- it basically amounts to child labor for pennies, but let's not go there.
The top prize was a ride in the world's longest stretch limo to a theme park. The school brought in a motivational speaker to sell the competition to all of us in the auditorium. It was a regular rock concert, by the time that speaker was done, you had a thousand middle school kids ready to kill and die to sell Spanish food cookbooks. Ain't noone in San Diego gonna be going without Spanish food cookbooks that year, no sir.
For me, the artificial excitement lasted long enough for me to pedal a cookbook off on my mom and another off on the family's pastor. I think my mom still has it, collecting dust somewhere back home. After that I pretty much lost interest and just watched by as other kids gloated about their epic cookbook conquests.
It turned out the ultra stretched limousine was out for repairs on the day of the theme park trip. And according to my friend who went (on the cheap replacement vans), the park was pretty mediocre. Better than a day in class, but not worth selling enough Spanish cookbooks to wipe out the Aztec civilization.
But something made me go and read the fine print that came with the fundraising paperwork. Lo and behold, there was a door prize for selling even just two cookbooks. I think I was the only person in the whole school to claim it. The door prize was an extremely cheap set of three small juggling balls.
Something about those juggling balls called out to the self-teacher in me. I set out, not even thirteen years old, to teach myself to juggle. I started with juggling just two in one hand- tossing one in the air, then tossing the second just before catching the first, and repeating. I got pretty good, and I moved on to three balls. It took awhile, and a lot of drops, but soon I was juggling three juggling balls.
What I got out of that fundraising drive was a lot more than what anyone else at the school got. I got a skill, albeit a somewhat trivial one, but still a skill nonetheless. A decent party trick, when you need to whip one out.
But the point is, the best prize was the unadvertised one. It was like a "secret" prize. Isn't that always the way in life!
Fast foward quite a few years to college. I go and hang out with some other jugglers, whip out my balls (I can do four by that point) and start juggling them. Everyone's jaw drops. Because I'm completely 100% self-taught, it turns out I have some crazy unique style that all the cookie cutter jugglers have trouble wrapping their brains around. I don't even know how to describe it because I never had the patience to learn all the official juggling lingo (and believe me, there's a whole language just for juggling). It's just kind of backwards, sort of like the difference between English and Japanese.
That experience was one of my very early experiences as an autodidact- an autodidact is a person who teaches themselves something. It worked my autodidact muscles and as such, was a very big lifetime benefit. All for selling two Spanish cookbooks. Fiesta!
Here are some other articles I've written. You can imagine me typing them with one hand, juggling some chainsaws in the other hand, if you like.
The Relationship Between Happiness And Material Success
Typing Faster In T9Word
Learn The Idioms, Not Just The Word
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