I regret very few things in life, but here is one that nags me with particular poignancy. Back in the day, I was a poor college student in a third-world country, and I was traveling from college to visit my parents. Public transport didn't and doesn't work in said third-world country, so I went to the highway to try to catch a ride. There were many college students standing by the highway, and at 2:00 AM in the night, I was still there. I left that place at 9:00 AM the next day, when a guy in a wore-down moskvich picked me up. Long story short, a few hundred kilometers later, he made a stop to take a piss, and then he wanted me to ...well, you guessed it. I ran away. It was okay for me to run away, I know. But the thing that bothers me so badly to this day is that I ran away because I was a cynic, and assumed that the guy wanted something ill from me. Truth is, I would have enjoyed giving that guy what he wanted, it's in my nature, and he well deserved it. Now, instead of a spicy memory, I have a cautionary tale about a cynic college student.

While I would not "deify" Jobs in anyway, I try to live by the following:

- Humans have achieved a lot of things. Despite our faults, we are a wonderful species.

- By the above, I shall not be a cynic, and I will believe more easily that a person is good or does something good than the opposite, i.e. that a person is acting in self-interest and in my detriment.

- I will try to do things in life that benefit others, by whichever stick I decide to measure that benefit.