Mitch Olson

“Your first sign something may be amiss comes quickly, the moment you get off the plane at the airport in Baltimore. After months of deprivation, American excess is overwhelming. Crowds of self-important bustling businessmen. Shrill and impatient advertising that saturates your eyes and ears. Five choices of restaurant, with a hundred menu items each, only a half-minute walk away at all times. In the land you just left, dinners are uniformly brown and served on trays when served at all. I was disoriented by the choice, the lights, the infinite variety of gummy candy that filled an entire wall of the convenience store, a gluttonous buffet repeated every four gates. The simple pleasure of a cup of coffee after a good night’s sleep, sleep you haven’t had since you received your deployment orders, seems overly simple when reunited with such a vast volume of overindulgent options.

But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn’t fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It’s not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life.

I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“The men on the trading floor may not have been to school, but they have Ph.D.’s in man’s ignorance.”
― Michael M. Lewis, Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

“It’s taboo,” he said. “When they ask you why you want to be an investment banker, you’re supposed to talk about the challenges, and the thrill of doing deals, and the excitement of working with such high-calibre people, but never, ever mention money.”
― Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker