But even if I stayed at it 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at some point my career would slow and stop. My columns were published in The New York Times.īut I had started to wonder: Can I really keep this going? I work like a maniac. I was the president of a flourishing Washington think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. I was not world-famous like the man on the plane, but my professional life was going very well. It was the summer of 2015, shortly after my 51st birthday. Standing at the door of the cockpit, the pilot stopped him and said, “Sir, I have admired you since I was a little boy.” The older man-apparently wishing for death just a few minutes earlier-beamed with pride at the recognition of his past glories.įor selfish reasons, I couldn’t get the cognitive dissonance of that scene out of my mind. Then in his mid‑80s, he was beloved as a hero for his courage, patriotism, and accomplishments many decades ago.Īs he walked up the aisle of the plane behind me, other passengers greeted him with veneration. I recognized him-he was, and still is, world-famous. I imagined someone who had worked hard all his life in relative obscurity, someone with unfulfilled dreams-perhaps of the degree he never attained, the career he never pursued, the company he never started.Īt the end of the flight, as the lights switched on, I finally got a look at the desolate man. I listened with morbid fascination, forming an image of the man in my head as they talked. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but couldn’t help it.
#Heroes of the storm preparing game data slow full
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