No regrets
I am glad I was there, sitting on the very first row, when Daniel Steinberg gave his presentation at AppDevCon.
The days before the conference we both were in Amsterdam and more than once he told me he had to rehearse and review it. “It’s still a bit dark” he said once. I had just a vague glimpse of what he meant. But I knew he was preparing to deliver a great presentation.
The metaphor that our time is a bit like flowers at an auction (either bought or burned) is still very clear in my mind. And the question “are you living the moment?” resonates at least once a day somewhere in my veins.
During the presentation I took the phone out once, to take two pictures. I payed extreme attention to not lose focus. “I want to enjoy this” I said while ignoring a bunch of notifications and red dots on my icons. I made the right choice.
The more the presentation went on and the more I was there, present, relishing every word.
When Daniel finished there was silence. There were more than three hundred people in the room, but total silence. For one second, almost two.
He touched our hearts and nobody wanted to ruin the moment with a clap. As the applause grew I turned around and I saw tears on many cheeks.
I am glad I was there.