Hi! This is the Daily Overpass. My name is Eric and I make apps. Now today, I want to
talk about why I love the fourth of July.
Okay, so it's the fourth of July. Today's the day of course, that we celebrate
because today is the anniversary of the day where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum
sent those aliens back into space with a computer virus. It was so awesome, right?
Sorry.. Sorry, I know that's a really corny joke. I've been waiting all week to
say that. That's a dad joke, right? We talked about that. Of course,
today, it's an American holiday. So, I'm in England, so you know in
America, there's barbecues and fireworks and celebrations and all
kinds of stuff. And here it's Tuesday, the kids are in school, it's just like a
normal day, right? But, I'm not gonna forget. Every fourth of July and
every Thanksgiving, I say I'm gonna do something special and rarely do I.
But, I love the fourth of July. I love it and of course, the fourth of July
being that the celebration of the Declaration of Independence were back in
1776, the Second Continental Congress of the colonies declared their independence
from Great Britain and then the Revolutionary War in suit. Then you
know, it wasn't happily live- happily ever after there're still slaves,
there's still lots of progress to be made. Even now, well now- we won't
talk about now. But ,a lot of you guys know,
I didn't study Computer Science. When I went to university after the army,
I went and I learned, I studied Journalism at first and then it was
History. So, my goal in life was to be a History teacher at one point. God,
I am so glad I didn't do that. I would, you know, I would be doing teaching
the same thing year after year after year. And we always have this spiel
that the reason we learn History, the reason why it's important is so we don't-
so we're not doomed to repeat it.Which is always seemed like a
really weak excuse to learn it. But, it was mainly because I was
fascinated by History. I loved studying History and when I
came out to England, there was a guy who came to me, he said, "Eric, I got this book you;d
really like cuz you're really into History." He says it's all about this area
back in the 1800s, all about how they you know, the
agricultural environment it was and it was all fields all around and all this
kind of stuff. And I thought, that sounds so boring! That's you know- that's
not what- what excited me about history was people, you know, normal people. Every
normal- you know, there were no super super humans in our
human history. There's always, you know, mere mortals. People who just- normal
people who made big decisions, people who said either you know, this is enough
we're not gonna take it anymore and they fought back. Or people who said,
we need more for us and we need to do more or you know, a lot of times
more aggressive tactics like, take more land and all this kind of
stuff. But, were filled with a human history of normal people doing
extraordinary things. And sometimes, somebody who's been told their entire
life there might be a king or royalty or you think there's
someone special growing up. But a lot of times, it's just a normal
everyday people who together. I love the fourth of July because we
celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We don't celebrate the
the beginning of America. We don't celebrate the end of the Revolutionary
War. We celebrate the time where the decision was made and that in the
Declaration was signed. The time were these group of people
pretty much signed their death warrants. For the other became traitors and put
their names down on paper and said, you know, we declare our independence and of
course, that was not the end of the story. We still had started slavery, we
had civil wars we had all this kind of stuff. It's still gonna keep going on.
It's not just American history, you know. I loved Cuban- Cuban history was
something I found really fascinating. The Cuban Revolution, if you
haven't read about it, I mean, despite we think a Castro, somebody going into power
and staying there as his entire life, you know and all that kind of stuff. But
the Revolution itself was fascinating. It was a small guerrilla
group which got on a boat and just basically took over this big army
of the other Cuban- during the Cuban Revolution. It was
really fascinating despite all the odds against them. Then of
course, you know it's Castro, Anyway, I'm not gonna go into that today. It's
Independence Day today. Today is the 4th of July. Today is Tuesday.
But what I want you to think about today is all the times in your life that
you're proud of. Are they times where something was given
to you? Is that time something that you know- because in history,
we rarely celebrate the times when something was given to
somebody. We celebrate the times where somebody made a decision, somebody did
something extraordinary, somebody you know, surmounted all the odds to do
something different. And you and I know this sounds really
inconsequential in comparison to a Revolutionary War. But you and I
we look at our lives and we see, you know, I want more than I have. I want to
build more than I have. Everyone around you is telling you maybe now is
not the best time. Maybe you should hold off , maybe you want too much,
right? But you know, you're gonna be proud. In the future, you're gonna look
back and this would be- you're proud of the fact that you had all these
overwhelming odds that you had to overcome. It wasn't easy.
There was no certainty, but you still did it. Anyway, sorry to ramble on it. I know
it's really corny today is it? (gagging sound) Anyway, that's it for today. I will talk
to you guys, tomorrow.