Me and Jet Li

Last night, my dad was trying to convince me to change my profile picture on Facebook because it was blurred and he couldn’t see clearly who it was.  I told him it was Jet Li and a lot of people don’t have trouble recognizing him.  In fact, it fooled some into thinking that I really worked for Jet Li or was married to him.   My dad didn’t like the photo but I told him it had a special symbolic meaning for me and anyway, I upload a lot of family and friends photos so it wasn’t an urgent need.

That Jet Li picture was taken in Beijing when I was covering a conference of top Chinese entrepreneurs for the Business Tianjin magazine where I sidelined as a writer during the time I lived in TEDA, China for five years.  My boss, the owner of the magazine also attended the big event which awarded Jet Li for his work in philanthropy.  My boss is a funny, adventurous, live-life-to-the-fullest kind of guy and we snuck into the cordoned VIP section during the awarding ceremony by walking on the red carpet pretending we were one of the invited guests.  I just followed him and ended up getting a table near the stage within autographing distance from the "autographables."  


When my boss found out that I wanted a picture taken with Jet Li, he egged me to follow him as he went outside and like giddy groupies and pesty paparazzi, we ran after him.  My boss wasn't used to holding the camera so the picture ended up blurred but I was so touched that it was even my boss who took it.  

Since then, it's been my profile picture and I've never replaced it because I wanted it to always remind of my dreams.  Not dreams of working for or becoming Jet Li's wife but of finding what it is I'm supposed to do in this world, making a contribution, a difference, an impact.   There are days when it seems this is a far away, unreachable, pie-in-the-sky dream when failures loom larger than life.  But there are days when a healthy optimism rules and I'll hurdle all the trials.  

Jet Li made a career out of acting but he went beyond and set up One Foundation to help provide relief in disaster areas around the world.   I've always admired people who have a career and who use their success as a vehicle to give back.  But I'm far, far from even getting a decent career so I'm at a loss how I'm ever going attain that dream and be able to finally change my profile picture.