Surprise!

"Hey!" said a voice to my right. Late afternoon or early evening in Palo Alto: quiet streets, the sun still high enough to cast patches of brightness and shadow on the sidewalk. I stopped and looked around. Sitting at a small table outside a newish Mexican place were two guys I used to work with. "How's it going?" said B. "Sit down, have some food!"

So I did. "How are things?" I asked. B's at a startup, his own. Two years ago I was following in his footsteps - literally, as I stepped in to take over his role at the Big Tech Company when B switched projects. Now B's life is so different from mine that I barely know what to ask about. He's happy, clearly, but it's a dream I don't understand. He has a one-room office in a VC's building, and a rooftop seating area enclosed by paintings of a beautiful marsh, and a whole lot of candy next to the desk he shares with his co-founders, and a giant model airplane in the lobby, and fifteen engineers in India. To him it's freedom. To me it's ... alien. And irrelevant. I can't imagine choosing it. But I like B, and I keep thinking that what he wants is going to start making sense to me just as soon as I figure it out.

"It's great!" B said. "Things are good!" We ate chips and ordered: mole, tostadas, soup. "How about you?" he asked. I thought I saw doubt in his eyes. I've been working on the same team for a long time; at the same company, even longer. It feels strange even to me. I never expected to be this stable, and in many ways I don't like it at all. And yet....

"Things are good!" I said. "I'm working on stuff I'm really happy about, things that're going to make a difference in the world."

And only once I said it did I realize it was true. I've been so focused on wondering if I was doing the right thing, wondering if I was returning to work in a sustainable way that would let me stay, wondering if I was stupid not to be chasing a startup dream or a higher salary, wondering if I had the right job and the right project and the right manager, that I haven't really stopped to think about the project at hand and whether it matters that anyone is doing it, let alone me. And yet in this case, the project does matter - or has the potential to matter, or so I believe. Conditionally, for now, at least. And apparently that's enough to make me happy.

Sometimes it's good that people ask how things are going.

If you get a chance to try red Oaxacan mole, you really should. That's good, too.