Page 30 of Ideal Life

Kissing strangers under too many lights had been unimaginable to him. But now, it seemed entirely possible that he could kiss Talia.

It would take only a small shuffle to draw close enough.

Sam moved toward her.

“Tal—”

But then a dozen naked sophomores and juniors streaked across the Quad, screaming, “We feel so left out!” while the freshmen gawked and the seniors shouted, “Boooo! Party crashers!”

The streakers were gone almost as soon as they appeared, whooping and cackling while they sprinted out of the archway at the far end of the Quad.

At the same moment, the lights above Sam and Talia flickered back to life, even brighter than before. And the Stanford Band burst onto the Quad right next to them—where had all the musicians been hiding?—trombones blasting, snare drums rattling, and trumpets launching into “All Right Now,” the song typically played at football games after a touchdown.

Delighted, Talia began clapping and bopping along to the music, oblivious to what Sam had just been about to do.

Or maybe she had known, and she’d been glad to have the excuse not to cross that line of friendship.

As she twined her fingers through his and drew him into the mass of dancing, celebrating students, Sam realized that maybe he was also glad for how it had turned out. Because he didn’t ever want to lose this—their easy camaraderie, and Talia’s hand leading his where she knew he needed to go.

So on that night, he made a pledge that he would always be there for her, too, just like she’d been there for him. And that he would never do anything to jeopardize this beautiful, precious thing between them, unless she made it clear first that she wanted more.

Erin

It was just before five in the morning, and Erin—not wanting to wake her roommate—had crept downstairs. A few of Stanford’s dorms were open in the summer for students who were staying in the area for internships, and Erin and Colette had been lucky enough to snag a room in one of them. Now, Erin sat in the dorm’s common area, taking deep, meditative breaths as she focused on the social media self-care coach’s video.

“It’s only morning,” the woman (known as @HigherVibesOnly_) said, “but I know that each decision I make affects the outcome of my day.”

“It’s only morning,” Erin repeated, “but I know that each decision I make affects the outcome of my day.”

A freshly brewed cappuccino appeared on the screen. The self-care coach’s hand entered the shot, picking it up from the pristine counter and taking the mug out to her balcony. There, @HigherVibesOnly_ stared off into the distance, watching the sun rise.

Erin hadn’t always been into self-actualization. She hadn’t even realized she needed to improve herself. When she was in high school, it had been effortless to get straight A’s, and she had been on the soccer team, the choir, and the youth chapter of the Red Cross, so it had never occurred to her that she wouldn’t get to continue doing all those things when she was in college.

But then she arrived at Stanford, and suddenly, she wasn’t always the smartest in the room. In fact, freshman year, she was at the bottom of almost all her classes. The intramural soccer league was full of students who weren’t quite Major League Soccer caliber (those players were on Stanford’s actual NCAA Division I soccer team), but nevertheless, the intramural players were echelons better than Erin, and she couldn’t keep up. She auditioned for five a cappella groups and didn’t get a call back from a single one. And even the volunteer organizations were intimidating, because the students there were launching international efforts rather than just teaching people how to perform basic CPR.

Impostor syndrome hovered over her, threatening. It had settled deep into some of the other freshmen’s bones, and it wanted Erin, too.

Yet even though she wasn’t the smartest anymore, she hadn’t gotten where she was by quitting. Erin was a doer.

So she’d swallowed what little pride she had left and went to the student tutoring center, where she asked for help in every single subject on her schedule. She attended every evening session with her classes’ teaching assistants. Erin pushed herself hard at the intellectual blockades in her brain, past limits that impostor syndrome told her she wouldn’t be able to breach.

Midway through her sophomore year, she was pulling a B-plus average, with A’s in her computer science courses.

And then she read an interview of Talia in Palo Alto Weekly, and Erin knew she’d found her role model—a fellow doer, who was a female tech founder to boot. She researched and read everything she could about Talia, then emailed her directly and asked for a summer internship, even though Ideal Life wasn’t offering one. She professed her loyalty to Talia’s philosophy of always trying to improve yourself, offering up the anecdotes of her freshman and sophomore years as evidence. Erin also included a passionate essay she wrote just for this purpose, which focused on Ideal Life’s mission (including footnotes to research papers that backed up the underlying neuroscience) and her desire to be a part of Talia’s vision to make the world a better place, one person at a time.

Erin got the job.

Now she watched the video on her phone as @HigherVibesOnly_ began a yoga routine under the soft pink light of the sky. Then the wellness coach sat at her desk and set a timer for ten minutes to journal. Finally, after she showered, she went through her skin-care routine, applying plumping serums and moisturizers, with a luxurious, slow lymphatic massage before she ended with sunscreen.

@HigherVibesOnly_ smiled serenely at the camera. “Now I ask you, What have you done to better your morning?”

Erin nodded. She had started the dorm lounge’s coffee machine (she was always the first one up; most college students were not known for waking more than ten minutes before the class or summer job they had to get to), and she’d had a cup already. It wasn’t a beautifully composed cappuccino like in the video, because they didn’t have a milk foamer in the dorm, but Erin would be sure to make a nicer cup for herself later in Ideal Life’s office, because they were proper adults there and did have a high-end coffee machine.

Erin took several more meditative breaths.

A message chimed on her Omni 3Ds, breaking the spell. It was her Ideal Life Friend, whom Erin had customized as an animated avatar of the Greek goddess Athena, because she represented wisdom, strategic thinking, personal growth, and achievement. Even the goddess’s voice in the tiny speakers of the Omni 3Ds sounded regal.

Ideal Life Athena: Erin, I’ve sensed that your morning coffee has hit your bloodstream and is ramping up the adrenaline in your brain and body. Now would be an optimal time for your run.