How disappointing – one of my favorite childhood books lied to me. I’m 42 today, really, today I’m 42 – and yet, I still don’t have answers to the my own personal ultimate questions of life. I’m truly disappointed, I guess the universe just decided to play a really horrible joke on all of us geeks out there – when reaching the age of 42….

But, having said that, I do believe that I don’t have answers to the ultimate questions – I think I have answers to some other questions – mainly, these are more related to my own personal growth, personal acceptance, tolerance and the things I believe in and willing to stand for.

No, I’m not Superman or have any super powers – and while I’m a firm believer in the “American Way”, I can’t stay that I stand for it. What I do stand for, well, I would say in global that if one would try to describe the thing I stand for the most – that would be “Tolerance”. Tolerance is the thing that differentiates us from animals, from barbarians, from little babies that want something that another baby holds – and will stop at nothing to get it. Tolerance is the ability to look at things from a Macro level, not a Micro level. Tolerance is the ability to look at systems (technical, human, organizational, etc) and say: “Yes, that part seems a little odd in that place, but it seems that another part performs much better due to that part”. It’s the ability to accept that other people are different than I – and most importantly, being able to accept the fact that while I’m confident I’m right, it doesn’t mean someone else is wrong.

Ok, I can be as sarcastic as anybody else – sometimes sarcasm actually helps us move things forward. But I’ve learned that when I direct my sarcasm towards myself, this is when I actually yield interesting and positive results – not because I put myself down, it’s because I allow myself the benefit of the doubt of saying: “Seriously? like really, this is what you are thinking?”, the minute I do that – I come up with a better concept, which moves me forward – in other words, I’ve learned to judge myself in a more efficient manner.

Honestly, I have ZERO tolerance to the following things:

1. People who just learned a certain technology and without even understanding it, try to superimpose it into each and every aspect of their work. This is like trying to screw in a philips head screw with a hammer, you’ll get the job done – but the result is messy.
2. People who can’t listen to other people – if you are talking to me only to hear yourself talking, then get the f*** out of my face, I have no interest in what you have to say.
3. People who say: “Oh, just give this to me and I’ll fix it” – and are saying it to be funny, you have no idea how annoying that is.
4. People who say: “You just need to do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and you’re done”, without actually ever doing it themselves. If you can’t do it, or hadn’t done it with your own two hands, don’t tell me it’s simple and don’t tell me how to do it – because your opinion, as much as I value it, means nothing at that point in time – apart from irritating me.
5. People who told me they took a class about something, then without even doing anything in that field of education, feel the need to give advice and guidance. That would be like taking a doctor fresh out of med-school, without doing any real time work in the ER or a medical facility – and letting him do open heart surgery. He may know the various theories and methodologies – but hell am I’m gonna allow that f*** wad to touch me with a scalpel.

So, am I turning into a crank guy? maybe, I guess age has its merits and its issues. So, here’s to myself, raising a toast with a wonderful glass of an 18 year old Irish Whiskey – the race has just began…