The importance of being idle

"Recall an occasion when you took a risk that you now know was the right thing to do."

As JFK welcomed me in New York, Elton John's "Rocket Man", still rang in my ears from the party the night before. In 2004 I abandoned my mother, left everything I had and knew behind, and came to America, armed with a couple thousand dollars and two suitcases. Just as Elton had said, "it's going to be a long, long time," before I return to my home country, Poland. All my life I've lived in big cities like Warsaw, Budapest, Liverpool, and Manchester, but now I was going to a small university town, Columbia, Missouri. I was going to stay with my father, a man who I've met before, but didn't really know. The unknown awaited, expectations were high.

Let me take you back to the beginning. As a kid, I traveled a lot with my parents, moving every two years or so. Only in Warsaw, Poland have I stayed for a significant amount of time, a full five years. I knew the city well and loved its urban character. The inescapable heat of a summer evening as you commute home after a long day while the sun floods the streets with its colors. The sight of big businessmen leaving their offices late at night, tired faces, shirts from Hugo Boss and loosened ties, and the vendors at their hot-dog stands rallying customers, pulling the kids in, hustling with style. The insane pulse of the busy streets made Warsaw an exciting place. Why did I want to come to America? To meet my father? To see something new? Because it's the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Whatever the reason, I'm here now. I've found my niche and adapted, a new man so to speak. Legally immigrating to the United States is a long and costly (I paid) process. My father could have started the whole thing a long time before I arrived but didn't. That, next to the lack of broadband Internet and virtually no public transportation, was a disappointment I wasn't prepared for. His attitude towards me was a major test of my nerves, as the expectations I had were too high and were downgraded with every realized disappointment.

I try to stay in touch with all my friends back in Poland and even though we talk less and less, as distance silences feelings, I tell them that the best adventures of our lives are still to come. I wonder whether I've left something behind that would make me remembered and whether I've told everyone I left how much they meant to me. One without roots hopes to find a home in the living memories of those whose lives he touches. Being eighteen years old, with my entire life ahead of me, and living in the greatest country in the world, the realm of possibilities appears endless. Vacations in Honolulu, traveling the world or studying at the most prestigious colleges, are no longer a seven-year-old's pipedreams. Moving to America was no doubt, an opportunity, but when I think of all my old friends having fun together (with emphasis on together), I sometimes doubt whether it was worth it. I wonder which things one ends up regretting more, those done or those not, hoping it's the latter. I wonder about the importance of being idle.

As for my mother, she is not forgotten. I know we will meet one day and have lots of stories to tell each other. And I know, she will be proud of everything I have done.

"If you're the market, it becomes extremely hard to beat the market" - CNBC