Principles in Life For Any Circumstances

January had been quite a month for us all to cope with. More goodbyes and transitions. Stock market crash from DeepSeek AI news. Plane crashes too.

The latest plane crashes reminded me of when I was at the Los Angeles airport on February 1, 1991 when USAir flight 1493 from NY crashed on top of another plane already on the runway. 35 people died in the fiery accident.

I was originally supposed to be on that USAir plane that had crashed, for its next leg of the flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco that evening. But somehow, I ended up boarding the earlier flight to SF that evening.

My plane became the last plane permitted to depart LAX that evening before the entire airport was shut down during the emergency. As my plane taxied and took off, first responders were rescuing people from the two crashed planes still burning on the other runway.

For me that weekend, I was a college student flying to a scholarship award ceremony in San Francisco, emceed by the SF mayor. As a young adult, this dissonance and nearby intersection with sudden deaths and tragedies permanently shaped my principles and views of life.

Now in 2025, I wrapped up this week by delivering the eulogy at my uncle’s funeral. The funeral service was on the day after what would have been his 86th birthday. My uncle was a mechanic on merchant ships that traveled to ports around the world, since he started working at age 13. He had seen so much in his lifetime. I wish I could learn more from his experiences and from others from his generation.

As for future generations, I have happy news to share with you that my son was recently accepted into the PhD programs at both MIT and Stanford. He now gets to choose which university to attend. In whatever career path he takes, I’m certain that data and AI and technology will be a big part of the future for him and his generation.

For today, I was originally going to share with you a continuation of my lesson that I taught in UCSD in January to the biostatistics leadership class. However, I’ll save it for another time, so that I can give you some immediate encouragement today.

Although I don’t know your individual situation, I’ve studied enough history for how people can cope and thrive, regardless of circumstances. Principles for us to follow:

• You are smart. You are adaptable.
• Stay observant. Stay flexible.
• Build your roots and foundations with others to stay strong together.
• Things won’t always go your way. But you can make the best of any situation.
• Do the right thing for people, and you won’t have any regrets.

We don’t know if circumstances in the future will give us either UBI or uncontrollable AI. Or both. In any case, humanity will be tested. I hope we do our best. Each of us has a role to play towards that shared future.

Never any regrets when we do the right thing for people.

Jimmy Wong Coach, speaker, and entrepreneur enabling people to thrive in the age of AI. Data science leader with 12 years experience at the LinkedIn company and 27 years in the industry. Visit aijimmy.com​ ​​​​​​

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