The Book of Awesome

by Neil Pasricha

  Finishing a book makes you feel good.

  You're almost there.

  AWESOME!

  Smiling and thinking of good friends who are gone

  I met Chris Kim in September 2005 in Boston.

  A tiny Korean guy with thin eyes hidden behind thick glasses under a well-worn and faded ball cap, he looked kind of mousy under awkwardly baggy clothes and behind a soft voice. And even though neither of us drank much, we met at a bar--me speed-sucking a gin and tonic through a needle-thin straw, him warming a well-nursed beer and occasionally taking baby sips.

  When he mentioned he was from Boston, I asked about the Red Sox and he played along well enough. "Big win last night," he offered cautiously. "Maybe still have a chance at the playoffs?" Of course, that launched me on a rant about the bullpen and whether Curt Schilling had enough steam for another big run. He nodded on, listening intently, asking genuine and serious questions, and letting our friendship take root over sports, of all things. Of course, he never watched the stuff, but was nice enough to let me talk mindlessly about it all night.

  Full of wry smiles, awkward pauses, and mock-serious faces, Chris was a complex, fascinating, creative person who grew into a remarkably close friend during the two years we went to school together. He got excited about little things, like caramelizing onions perfectly for an hour on low heat, getting randomly selected to fill out a survey of his radio habits, or learning a new keyboard shortcut in Microsoft Excel.

  But it wasn't the bar scene that helped our friendship bloom. It was the car scene.

  Yeah, when I showed up to class on our first winter morning, shivering to the bone in a flimsy nylon coat, my hair wet, my face dripping, Chris asked where I lived and if I needed a ride the next day. As I was at that moment toweling my face off with a fistful of balled-up Kleenex, I took him up on it right away. (Lucky for me Chris had signed up to be a senior student in an undergrad residence way off campus, spending his free time for two years chaperoning social events, holding heads above toilets, and editing two or three resumes a night at a steady clip.)

  Anyway, he began picking me up every morning for the next two years, probably at least a couple hundred rides, never once accepting money for gas because, as he said, "I'm going that way anyway." When other students heard about my taxi service, they got in on it too. It started with a "Hey Chris, if there's a blizzard tomorrow, can I catch a lift?" and turned into Chris emailing three or four of us each night, giving us the Bus Schedule, as he called it, timed precisely to the minute for the next morning. And so it went--us piling into his car after he'd spent the first few minutes warming it up for us, tightly blanketed in fat mittens and his trademark big blue hat.

  Last year I nervously started up the website that inspired this book, tentatively dipping my toe into cyberspace where anyone could see. Chris of course adopted his Mexican half-brother pseudonym San Carlos and peppered the site with comments of support from the get-go. On Popping Bubble Wrap he wrote, "I learned on the news that Bubble Wrap is a fantastic insulator because of the trapped air, so if you're cold DO NOT POP IT but wrap yourself in it." On Paying for something with exact change he wrote, "I save all my pennies in my car. And then, the next time I do McDonald's drive-thru, I fling all the pennies into the server's face. . . . No actually, I put the pennies into the Ronald McDonald's House box underneath the window." On Playing with a baby and not having to change its diaper he wrote, "I don't mind changing my nephews' diapers. It only got weird when they began to talk. Awkward!"

  I loved his sense of humor and his way about himself. I loved how he laughed, frequently, at little things and got so excited about tiny details most people overlooked. Chris and I spoke three or four times a week after we graduated, in ten or fifteen minute snippets usually, but sometimes for an hour or two. He'd tell me about the sourdough bread he was baking that day, the elaborate meal he had planned for friends coming for dinner, or the New York Times article he thought I should check out. I would ask him for ideas for awesome things--he had plenty--and occasionally go on long rants about sports.

  Chris died suddenly last year. He was thirty-two.

  No amount of the usual closing rhyming couplets or fist-to-the-sky proclamations are going to bring him back. But I know he's in a peaceful place and would want us all to just be happy, keep plugging, and enjoy our lives as fully as we can. So thank you, Chris. You'll always inspire me.

  And you'll always be so incredibly awesome.

  Remembering how lucky we are to be here right now

  Over dinner one night my dad started telling me about his first day in Canada.

  It was 1968 and he was twenty-three, arriving on a plane with eight dollars in his pocket to start a new life by himself in a country he had never visited.

  "A community group had a welcome dinner for new immigrants," he started excitedly. "And they had a big table of food!"

  I was unimpressed.

  "A table of food," I agreed flatly while staring straight ahead and flipping past baseball highlights on TV.

  "A table of food," he continued. "Basically, Neil, all the presentation of the picnic food on the table, I didn't recognize. There were two or three kinds of salad. Potato salad, macaroni salad, maybe coleslaw. Probably four different kinds of sandwiches, ham sandwich, turkey sandwich, chicken sandwich, roast beef sandwich. Then there were the main courses they called it, you know, tuna casserole? Then the dessert was pies. Which I never seen pies before."

  I put down the remote and glanced at him cockeyed. Behind the thick, boxy glasses, I could see his eyes darting wildly.

  "How did you know what everything was?"

  "My brother was there, so I will ask him and he told me whatever it is. The trays of cold cuts was different, instead of regular chicken they have sliced them, sometimes they have them rolled with the toothpick in them. I had never seen cold cuts before, I seen chicken in chicken form but not rolled up. Same for cheese . . . some were in slices, some of them in squares."

  "What did you eat?" I asked.

  "I ate everything, that's the only way to get to know! I can't believe how many different things you can get here!"

  My dad would take me to the grocery store and marvel at the signs beside every fruit. He was fascinated that pineapples came from Costa Rica and kiwis were shipped from New Zealand. Sometimes he came home and opened an atlas to find out where the countries were. "Somebody brought dates from Morocco and dropped them five minutes from home."

  He'd just smile and shake his head.

  But if I really stop to think about it, a lot had to happen before we could be here right now. A lot had to happen before we could buy bananas from Ecuador and eat turkey cold cuts, before we could flip through books about warm underwear and cool pillows, before we learned to read anything at all, before we grew tall, before we could talk, before we could walk, before we were even born. . . .

  So let's stop for a second and pull back. Let's pull way, way, way, way back.

  Okay.

  You used to be a sperm.

  Now don't get self-conscious. We all used to be sperm. Check out the period at the end of this sentence. That tiny little dot is around 600 microns wide. When you were a sperm, you were about 40 microns wide. And you were so cute back then too, with your little tail wagging all over the place and your love of swimming. Boy, could you swim. In fact, if you hadn't outswum your siblings, you might be a slightly different version of yourself right now. Maybe you'd have a higher-pitched laugh, hairier arms, or stand two inches shorter.

  You had a great life as a sperm but always felt incomplete. The truth is you weren't whole until you met an egg. And then you two began a nine-month project to make a cool new version of you. It took a while but you grew arms and legs and eyeballs and lungs. You grew nerves and nails and ear-drums and tongues.

  For a sperm to meet an egg it means your mom met your dad. But it's not just them. Think about how many people had to meet, fall in love, and make love for you to be here. H
ere's the answer: a lot. Like a lot a lot.

  Before they had you, none of your ancestors drowned in a pond, got strangled by a python, or skied into a tree. None of your ancestors choked on a peach pit, was trampled by buffalo, or got their tie stuck in an assembly line.

  None of your ancestors was a virgin.

  You are the most modern, brightest spark of years and years and years of survivors who all had to meet each other in order to eventually make you.

  Your nineteenth-century Grandma met your nineteenth-century Grandpa down at the candle-making shoppe. She liked his muttonchops and he thought she looked cute churning butter.

  Your Middle Ages Grandpa met your Middle Ages Grandma while they both poured hot oil from the castle turrets on pillaging Vikings. She liked his grunts and he thought the flowers in her hair made her heaving bosoms jump out.

  Your Ice Age Grandpa crossing the Bering Bridge in a woolly mammoth fur met your Ice Age Grandma dragging a club in the opposite direction. He liked her saber-toothed necklace and she dug his unibrow.

  Your ancient rainforest Grandpa was picking berries naked in the bush while your ancient rainforest Grandma was spearing dodos for dinner. She liked his jungle funk and he liked her cave drawings. If it wasn't for the picnic they had afterward, maybe you wouldn't be here.

  You're pretty lucky all those people met, fell in love, made love, had babies, and raised them into other people who did it all over again. This happened over and over and over again for you to be here. Look around the plane, coffee shop, or park right now. Look at your husband snoring in bed, your girlfriend watching TV, or your sister playing in the backyard. You are surrounded by lucky people. They are all the result of long lines of survivors.

  So you're a survivor too. You're the latest and greatest. You're the top of the line. You're the very best nature has to offer.

  But a lot had to happen before all your strong, fiery ancestors met each other and fell in love over and over again for hundreds of thousands of years. . . .

  So let's stop for a second and pull back again. Let's pull way, way, way, way back.

  Okay.

  Let's go on a field trip. Put your shoes on because we're heading outside.

  Take a bowling ball and drop it on the edge of your driveway. That's our Sun. Yeah, the ball is only eight inches across and the actual sun is eight hundred thousand miles across, but that's our scale for this little brain wave. Okay, now walk down your street ten big paces and drop a grain of salt on your neighbor's lawn. That's Mercury. Take nine more paces down the street and drop a peppercorn for Venus. And then take another seven paces, so you're now two or three houses down the block, and toss down another peppercorn.

  You got it.

  That peppercorn is Earth.

  Here we are, basking in the blazing sun, twenty-six big steps away from the bowling ball. Our giant planet is just a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere, but here's the crazy part: It gets a whole lot bigger.

  If you keep walking, Mars is only a couple more houses away, but Jupiter ends up ninety-five big paces down the street, out of the neighborhood, and halfway to the corner store. By now a dog is probably slobbering in the bowling ball finger holes and kids are flying by you on their bikes, slurping drippy Popsicles and wondering what's up with this nut tossing crumbs on the sidewalk, acting out some demented suburban version of Hansel and Gretel.

  If you want to finish up our solar system, you're going to have to start taking two- and three-hundred paces for the remaining planets, eventually dropping a grain of salt for Pluto half a mile away from the bowling ball. You can't see the bowling ball with binoculars and it's getting cold out for your long walk home.

  But here's the crazier part: That's just our solar system. That's just our bunch of rocks flying around our big bright bowling ball star.

  Turns out our big bright star and all its salt grains and peppercorns are racing around a cosmic racetrack with two hundred billion other big bright bowling ball stars. You'd have to cover the entire Earth with bowling balls eight thousand times to represent the number of stars in our racetrack. Did we mention this racetrack has a name? Yup, it's called the Milky Way galaxy, presumably because the scientists who first noticed it were all eating delicious Milky Way candy bars late that Friday night down at the telescopes.

  So basically our bowling ball, salt, and peppercorns are flying in the fast lane around a ridiculously giant racetrack galaxy called the Milky Way with billions and billions of other bowling balls, salt grains, and peppercorns.

  But are you ready for the craziest part: That's just our galaxy. Guess how many giant racetrack galaxies are in all of outer space? Oh, not many. Just more than we can possibly count. Honestly, nobody knows how many galaxies are out there in the big blackness. All we know is that every few years somebody stares out a little farther and finds millions more of them just shining way out in the void. We don't know how deep it goes because our rocket ships don't blast off that far and our thickest, fattest telescopes can't see that far.

  Now, all this space talk might make us feel small and insignificant, but here's the thing, here's the big thing, here's the biggest thing of all: Of the millions of places we've ever seen, it appears as though Earth is the only place that can support life. The only place! Oh sure, there could be other life-giving planets we haven't seen yet, but the point is that Earth could easily have been a clump of sulfur gas, be lying in darkness forever, or have winters that dip a couple hundred degrees and last twenty years like Uranus.

  On this planet Earth, the only one in the giant dark blackness where anything can live, we ended up being humans.

  Congratulations, us!

  We are the only species on the only life-giving rock capable of love and magic, architecture and agriculture, jewelry and democracy, airplanes and highway lanes. We're the only ones with interior design and horoscope signs, fashion magazines and house party scenes, horror flicks with monsters, guitar jams at concerts. We got books, buffets, and radio waves, wedding brides and roller coaster rides, clean sheets and good movie seats, bakery air and rain hair, Bubble Wrap and illegal naps.

  We got all that. But people, listen up.

  We only get a hundred years to enjoy it.

  I'm sorry but it's true.

  Every single person you know will be dead in a hundred years--the foreman at your plant, the cashiers at your grocery store, every teacher you've ever had, anyone you've ever woken up beside, all the kids on your street, every baby you've ever held, every bride who's walked down the aisle, every telemarketer who's called you at dinner, every politician in every country, every actor in every movie, everyone who's cut you off on the highway, everyone in the room you're sitting in right now, everyone you love, and you.

  Life is so great that we only get a tiny moment to enjoy everything we see. And that moment is right now. And that moment is counting down. And that moment is always, always fleeting.

  You will never be as young as you are right now.

  So whether you're enjoying your first toothpicked turkey cold cuts and marveling at apples from South Africa, dreaming of strange and distant relatives from thousands of years ago, or staring into the blackness of deep, deep space, just remember how lucky we all are to be here right now.

  If you feel that sense of wonder and beauty in all the tiny joys in life, then you're part of an international band of old souls and optimists, smiling on sidewalks, dancing at weddings, and flipping to the other side of the pillow. Let's all high five and keep thinking wild thoughts, dreaming big dreams, and laughing loud laughs.

  Thank you so much for reading this book.

  And thank you for being

  AWESOME!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  And away we go!

  To the Sun, thanks for giving us heat, life, and pretty sunsets.

  To my old campus newspaper Golden Words, thanks for being a source of good times for four years at college. Shout-outs to Jay Pinkerton and Mike Jones for their guidance and idea
s.

  To the New York Times, thanks for blowing my mind every Sunday. I just can't get enough.

  To Sam Javanrouh, thank you for taking photos for this book. The way you see the world is stunningly beautiful. To fellow bloggers Frank Warren of PostSecret, Jen Yates of Cake Wrecks, Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like, Ben Huh of FAIL Blog, Gala Darling of galadarling.com, David Cain of Raptitude, and Adam Fuhrer of PICDIT, thanks for showing me the virtual ropes.

  To Mu, Andy, and everyone at Digg, thanks for introducing me to your wild world. Thanks to Drew Curtis at Fark for believing in old, dangerous playground equipment.

  Thanks to many great teachers I've had over the years, especially Mr. Olson, Mr. Mac, Mr. Howes, Ms. Eales, Ajay Agrawal, Mike Wheeler, Frances Frei, and Andre Perold. Special thanks to Ms. Dorsman for pushing me out of my shell in third grade.

  To Canada and the United States, thanks for letting me live in you. I'm lucky to have enjoyed so many years with great people in both countries. Sure, y'all keep fine-tuning these ships, but so much of what you got going on is clicking jusssssst fine.

  To all of Section A, especially Brian, Rob, Erik, and Ryan, thank you for the support. To my oldest friends, Scott, Mike, Rye, Chad, and H, thanks for supporting me since I forced you to buy newspapers back in grade school, robbing you of many delicious Hot Lips and Swedish Berries. Special thanks to Chad for his beautiful off-the-menu brain.

  To jdurley, Mike Dover, and Freddo, thank you for being a tremendous source of bright lightbulb ideas and great comments. Freddo, special thanks for your rock-solid advice and friendship through everything.

  To everyone who has ever read, blogged, commented, emailed, MyFaced, Tweetered, or Spacebooked any part of 1000 Awesome Things around the electronical intertubes, thank you sincerely for your support.

  To WordPress, thank you so much for hosting my site from Day 1. You give people all over the world a voice.

  Thanks to many close friends who have supported me, especially Dee, Ryan, Gill, Drew, Joey, Alec, Danielle, Roz, Shiv, Arlene, Baxter, Dave, Angela, Bob, Jim, Andrew, Ryan, Kevin, and Agostino.