Love the One(s) You’re with

I went to my first homecoming in twenty years just recently. Berkeley, where I received my MBA, is a spectacular campus that will graduate more kids from low-income households this year than the entire Ivy League combined. They invited me to speak and offered to take me and my sons down on the field before kickoff against the University of Arizona Wildcats.

Homecoming traces its roots back to the University of Missouri, whose administrators felt it would be a good idea to host alumni back on campus. A homecoming game is usually played after the football team returns from its longest road trip and is purposefully matched against a lesser competitor so alums can feel pride in their alma mater via the most American of activities … crushing the competition.

I have mixed emotions visiting San Francisco and Berkeley. I had not only a different life, but a different wife … and feel bittersweet, including some guilt, about that time in my life. In addition, the severely mentally ill homeless dotting the sidewalks in front of buildings where twenty- and thirtysomethings aspire to aggregate the shareholder value of a small European nation as they “make the world a better place” with SaaS software and driverless cars is just fucking dystopian, in my view.¹¹^, ¹²^, ¹³ I have no moral clarity here, since I was, and still am, one of them. #hypocrite

My good friend George encouraged me to go. He pointed out the importance of “taking the time to remember and visit the people and places along the way,” which I thought was poetic. This emotion temporarily overrode my cynical view, developed in high school, that people who attend homecoming have already peaked, and haven’t done much since.

Coming Home

What has gained more and more momentum in my life, however, is coming home. Like an Imperial TIE Fighter shooting from the bowels of the Death Star, with the tractor beam paused, I leave on business trips with a sense of determination and confidence. I am … On. A. Mission.

The past seven days have been a book tour with stops in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bentonville, and Dallas. But on the back half of every business trip, the tractor beam turns on. I can be in a galaxy far, far away, with so much still to do that I barely register it. But as I get closer, the beam’s pull gets stronger and stronger, and it’s as if I am falling home.

I don’t think this pull will ever be greater than it is now. Having kids who are young enough to seem perfect but not old enough to recognize your imperfections creates an innocence and joy that I don’t believe I’ll register again until I have grandkids. Being blessed with a great partner who also shares in this joy is the premier achievement. My students spend so much time thinking about picking the right career.14 However, it’s a distant second relative to the mother of all important decisions, which will set the tone for the rest of your life (together)—picking the right mate.

I didn’t feel this way until I had kids. When our first son was born, I was working around the clock at L2, and used to make the three-block trek home to bathe him before going back to work. My pace would noticeably escalate as I turned onto our block. The dopamine release you get right before seeing someone you are excited to see is one of those emotions that keeps you young. It focuses you on your better self, the self who cares about others and can’t wait to be in the presence of another soul, as together, you are each a better version of yourself, a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Your family, friends, mates, and colleagues—our species thrives because of cooperation and caregiving, so our midbrain has blessed us with the steady march of happiness that washes over you when you’re about to be with people you love.

I’m in the middle seat of the twenty-third row, typing with one hand, as the guy next to me is wider than his seat (normal size).¹⁵ Eating bad pretzels, and I am joyous. I’m in the tractor beam … I’m coming home.