Today, I share with you a vignette on one of the principles by which I live my life, but first a news digression.

The Digression

2015 I believe, is for us hobos (Chris and Nico) the year of the book. I’ve already published (but not written) a book, Nico announced he was writing a book, and so now I’ve jumped on the bandwagon too, and have started a brain spew into a google doc of the principles by which I live my life, in the hope that it might emerge as some sort of short readable volume of vignettes.

My friend Tyler, suggested publishing the vignettes “37 signals” style, i.e. as blog posts before herding them into a book. And so without further ado, here is today’s vignette:

The Vignette – The Hobo CEO is Humble

When you’re just a hobo, you don’t get much respect. When you’re a CEO you can have great power, prestige and private jets. The Hobo CEO however, considers himself worth no more or less than the particles his temporary body is comprised of, which is roughly the same as president Obama, planet Earth or a pony.

He not judge others on the hand they have been dealt by Auntie Luck, nor does he judge people on the choices they’ve made. He considers himself the same as anyone else, and therefore respect or approval from his peers is not an indicator or his “worth”.

Of course being human, he’s still born with a fragile ego and will naturally experience it’s pain and brief pleasures, but he knows self-worth is ultimately a fantasy, and reliance on the shifting sands of respect from others is to sleep under a fragile roof indeed.

Moreover while The Hobo CEO may have his own integral way of doings things and even be as arrogant as to presume anyone would want to read them all written down in a book or a blog post, he does not presume that it is correct or better than anyone else’s way.

Postscript: Laser Cats

If you didn’t click on the “book” link at the beginning, you’d have missed out on seeing the “laser cats” book cover: