Happiness, Inner Peace, or Value

The most memorable Uber ride I’ve ever taken was from the Orlando airport to Kennedy Space Center in 2025. As soon as I got in the car the driver asked me if I was in town for work, which I was. He asked what kind of work, and I said aerospace engineering. His response was, “Oh nice – my family has a long history in the aerospace industry. Have you heard of the Wright brothers?”

He went on to explain that his last name was Patterson, a family name that has a long history interwoven with the Wrights; hence, Wright-Patterson Airforce Base. He claimed that his father oversaw government aerospace programs, that if aerospace technologies were being used by the government/military, that his dad was highest up in the chain regarding approval and use. He did seem to know a lot about aerospace for somebody that didn’t work in the industry, but so do most Floridians. He claimed to keep distance from his family because that level of wealth and power created an environment that didn’t value compassion. He also said that he owned a tailoring business in Miami, and that the reason he drives for Uber is to have genuine interactions with normal people. This all occurred in this first 10 minutes of the hour-long drive. He might've been an aspiring actor.

The remaining 50 minutes were full of discussion pertaining to meditation, love, consciousness, and base reality. He had my attention for the whole ride. After pulling up to the hotel, he handed me a book that was sitting in his glove compartment. I thanked him, and he left.

The book is called Love is the Opposite of Fear, and it was written by Gerald Jampolsky, a medical doctor and psychiatrist that founded “The Center for Attitudinal Healing”, a center created originally to help children with life-threatening illnesses.

If you asked Jampolsky what any person’s objective should be, he would’ve said “inner peace” – supported by the 12 lessons he discussed in the book. Other people think happiness should be the objective. Personally, I think the most meaningful objective is finding as much value as possible in as many moments as possible.