Life is Good

Kien Pham

Greetings from Vietnam!

I am writing to you from Saigon, now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City. This is where I was born and raised during the Vietnam War. It was also the place that I ran away in search of freedom as a teenager.

As many of you knew from my propaganda at GSB brown bag lunches and properly deciphered the truth during our two class trips to Vietnam with Walt Spevak, I have been one lucky dude.

Yes, I still feel very lucky.

The fact that I now can live happily in Saigon is a happy closing of a dramatic circle. It was a journey of 40 years with many episodes. I went from being a lost and beaten teenager to becoming a purposeful and grateful adult. During that long journey there were many lucky breaks including GSB and your friendships. So this note is to share with my classmates the most profound thing that happened in my life since we left the Farm.

I went blind. Yes, no kidding. I cannot see myself in the mirror anymore.

But I am still a lucky guy.

A few of you knew of my eyesight difficulty while at Stanford. Doctors told me that I would lose my eyesight due to a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. They did not know how long that might take and advised me to learn through listening. So that was my first lucky break. I knew ahead of time and I got a lot of help from volunteer textbook readers. Most of them were nice undergraduate students and my neighbors at Manzanita Park marveled how I got all these young ladies coming in and out of my trailer regularly. Life was good and I got through GSB with loads of kind friends.

But my eyesight got worse and worse. Then about five years ago, I could no longer see myself in the mirror. Now, that was a wake-up call.

During that time I went to Iowa City to visit an eye research center, and Joe Tye showed up to give me good Never Fear, Never Quit moral support. Joe did not know this, but his face was among the last images of my final sighted days. (I told you, I was one lucky guy! 🙂 )

Honestly, after five years of living in the dark, I have learned blindness is a special gift that I got from the Almighty. I now use a white cane (with hand-made leather grip!) and go everywhere with an assistant whom I call my shadowman. I use digital audio technology to carry out my daily life in both business and philanthropy (my current two hats in Vietnam). In fact, I am writing this note by myself on my Samsung tablet keyboard, all typos included.

So why a special gift with this crazy blindness? Well, as a starter, I get priority boarding at the airport and TSA allows me to cut in line. I highly recommend you to use a white cane whenever possible. 🙂

Now, seriously, there are two great lessons for me with blindness.

One, I cannot discriminate anymore. I lost the ability to have visual bias based on skin color, clothing, weight, and so on. Now people are just a voice to me and I default to treating everyone nicely the same. It is truly liberating and I love my freedom from social biases.

Two, blindness taught me the true meaning of humility (which was not something I was born with!). Look at me, here I am, a Stanford MBA, a White House Fellow, an allegedly successful person, but sorry, I cannot pee on my own. I need help to find the urinal. So many times, my wife would bring me to the door of a public toilet and I have to ask out loud, “Anyone here? Can you give me some help?” Each time that happens, I get an instant reminder on the meaning of humility. Humble is my secret middle name now.

Here’s one real GSB story for you. I am one of those interviewers for GSB, so every summer I stop by the Farm to catch up with the admission director over lunch at our now-fancy cafeteria. My wife would come with me since she drives. A few summers ago, after such lunch, my wife was putting our trays away, so I stood up and pulled out my folded white cane. Suddenly, there was a deep warm voice of a man.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Oh no, thank you. I am just waiting for my wife to take me to the restroom,” I replied.

“I’ll take you to the restroom.” The man volunteered.

“Ok, great, I appreciate that,” I said (since I am so used to having help from total strangers). So the man let me put my left hand on his right shoulder and he walked slowly leading me to the GSB restroom. During our careful slow walk, he told me that he was a professor and so on.

After we walked out of the restroom, the man told me that an Asian woman was walking toward us and he handed me to my wife. Then he shook my hand and walked away.

“Who was that?” my wife asked.

“Oh, a nice professor who volunteered to take me to the restroom,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s nice. The handicapped helping the handicapped,” my wife said.

“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.

“My gosh, you did not know that he is paralyzed on his left side?” asked my wife.

Then she told me that my angel/new friend looked like he had suffered a stroke and was walking slowly.

That was one beautiful Kodak moment of my lucky life. I had no bias and I simply and humbly accepted help from a stranger who took me to a urinal.

Isn’t that a good lesson for me! I told you a few hundred words above, I am one lucky dude.

So, yes, my life is good, and I hope yours is, too.