I found an old thumb drive this week, one with tons of files from my high school and college years.

Even though I didn’t recognize my passion for writing and travel until graduate school and beyond, turns out it was there all along – and I was practicing my iceberg approach at an early age.

This was an awesome find for me – seeing the insight I had back then – seems like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

I used to write in my notebook during class in high school (classroom education always bored the hell out of me).

There are a lot of things on that thumb drive that will never see the light of day, but here’s one I’m pretty proud of, completely untouched and exactly the way I wrote it when I was a teenager:

And then, as thunder roared, a businessman approached the podium. He began his speech, proclaiming to each one of them that they should begin to organize themselves and prepare to take up a trade. He told them that they should figure out whom they might like to marry and how many kids they might want. The man urged them to have in mind where they wanted to live. He warned against spontaneity, for it leads to bad decisions. He concluded by saying that “having a game plan and a specific focus will bring about success.”

As he finished, he noticed that one of the boys was not paying attention, for he was staring out the window. The man asked the boy to summarize what he had just said. The boy looked confused. He turned and responded, “Well, I heard you say something about the future, but I really wasn’t paying attention.” The man sounded annoyed. “Do you not care about the rest of your life? What else could be more important than this?”

The boy looked confused once again, and as he turned back towards the window he calmly answered, “Oh I am, but I was just thinking about how amazing it is that water falls from the sky.”