Since I was deeply involved in Tibet issue I decided to visit Tibet and spend two months travelling there to see the situation with my own eyes.
By chance I came to a small village called Ashuk in Kham (east Tibet, located in Sichuan province). The first impression was not good - everything was just mud. Mud houses standing next to the muddy road. The only nice place with decent food was the house of a local Rinpoche. One day I was bored and I baked a simple cake. He tried it and said I should stay there.
I ended staying there for three months. Mud was just one face of the place. Sun, green grasslands and incredibly kind people the other one.
In the next village I met a young buddhist master who was working on establishing a home and school for orphans. Helping him gave me a real reason to stay longer. We ended up opening the school in 2006 and it is still going strong [1].
I published a book about it [2] in Slovenia and hopefully I'll manage to do the English translation this or next year.
Do you realise that although you "lost 2-4 years of your career" you created a few dozen higher quality lives?
I think you have achieved a major life goal already that most in Silicon Valley do not. I don't know if HN is the place to praise such deeds, but you did your small part in hacking the world to make it better. Kudos to you, don't ever let it feel as a wasted effort. That's so wrong a way to think.
There are people who want to help others and their repeated attempts fail. You just went and did something that's working for 7 years.
That's a pretty successful startup in my book. It can't go viral for obvious reasons, but it's mature and stable. And you did it without HN :-)
Agree 100% with you. I never for a single moment regretted spending the time in Tibet. It was literally a life-changing experience.
A lot of times it is said that you should pursue your carrier while you're still young and without many responsibilities. But the same goes for creating something meaningful with your life, for exploring the world and widening your perspective on life. It is much easier done when you're young and it beneficially affects the rest of your life.
Since I was deeply involved in Tibet issue I decided to visit Tibet and spend two months travelling there to see the situation with my own eyes.
By chance I came to a small village called Ashuk in Kham (east Tibet, located in Sichuan province). The first impression was not good - everything was just mud. Mud houses standing next to the muddy road. The only nice place with decent food was the house of a local Rinpoche. One day I was bored and I baked a simple cake. He tried it and said I should stay there.
I ended staying there for three months. Mud was just one face of the place. Sun, green grasslands and incredibly kind people the other one.
In the next village I met a young buddhist master who was working on establishing a home and school for orphans. Helping him gave me a real reason to stay longer. We ended up opening the school in 2006 and it is still going strong [1].
I published a book about it [2] in Slovenia and hopefully I'll manage to do the English translation this or next year.
[1] http://shechen-school.org/prva-stran/lang:en
[2] http://www.matjaztrontelj.si/vsebina