Awakening, 2nd edition by Ray N. Kuili Read Free Book Online Page B

why can ’t you keep walking the same path? Who said that you must stop somewhere halfway between college and real life? Why can ’t you keep using all your talents and skills, and with the same persistence and determination rise up through the ranks, first catching up and then leaving behind those who had the advantage of an early start but didn ’t have enough brains to use it? Can you imagine anything that would prevent us from doing this? And then in ten years or so you could become the next of kin to the people who rule one of the major corporations, which—and here Alan would make a pause full of significance—which, as we all know, rule the world.
    But at that point, his friends were no longer in agreement with him. “You ’ve watched too many movies, ” Tim would snort. “These places are full of smart kids like you. And everybody wants a slice of it. What makes you so special? In ten years ’ time, you ’ll make head of department, and start waiting for your retirement days. That ’s your future, brother. Resistance is futile.” As for Larry, he would nod his brainy , eyeglasses—adorned head in agreement, while listening to Tim ’s loud maxims. He had little interest in becoming a big boss, but he wasn ’t without his own ambitions. Not that he wanted much. Just full recognition of his future accomplishments by th e world ’s scientific community and some fame. Like Time Magazine's front page. And perhaps, a Nobel.
    “I’m telling you, you ’ve got to go someplace else!” Tim would proclaim, encouraged by his friend ’s silent support. “Someplace else ” meant “The place where I ’m going .” For Tim wasn ’t going to join the corporate legions. Oh no, brother. Upon receiving his diploma he was about to proceed without hesitation to a known-to-nobody, privatively held, loosely structured tiny startup, one of those that , like mushrooms after a rainy day , had been popping up inside the glittering structures of the Technology Center. There, as Tim passionately believed and loudly argued, instant breathtaking success was waiting for him—success never to be experienced by fools who, blinded by evil PR machines, sell their souls to the corporate monsters.
    The startup was destined to flourish, to prosper, to rise above the petty competitors —and with it inevitably would rise Tim. And Tim ’s heart hurt as he watched his equally talented and bright friend getting ready to make a tragic mistake. “Tim ’s right, ” Larry would agree. “It ’s a risk —but no risk, no glory. Being in the right place, at the right time . . . w ell, you know how it goes.”
    But Alan didn’t want to take risks. He wanted to hit the bull ’s eye and he wanted it guaranteed—just the way he had always been.
    And who has had the last laugh? Where are Tim and Larry? Tim bangs away at his keyboard all day long in his startup. Only it ’s not the same startup he joined to rise and shine. That one died peacefully about two years later. And so Tim went to a former competitor, hoping that they would want him, and appreciate him, and please him. And they wanted him, and they pleased him, and they appreciated him, and they promised him the world. And they went bankrupt in six months.
    And Larry? Larry is stuck in his university; fights for grants, up to his ears in the local turf wars, groans whenever he needs to submit a new paper and teaches hopeless slackers. And so far no prospects of getting a Nobel.
    So what about Alan? Alan rules. Granted, he doesn’t rule the world yet. And not a company. Not even a division. But he has over a hundred people to manage. And it didn ’t take him ten years to make head of a department. Just two and half years, brother Tim. Just two and half. And yes, he may be a corporate asset, but a damn important one . Because now his name is even known at the very top, at those heights unseen from the ground to which inevitably, unstoppably , he will rise too. And they ’ve just