These words simply charme me, I want to tell a little story to explain why.
I've been looked for my own identity for years, since I've always been sourranded by strong personalities, so it was quite hard for my understand which is my path.
When I went to school, I clearly remember I couldn't be a perfect student, there were excellent people like my really close friend Marco Giammatteo that were brilliant - and still are, take a look for example at his LinkedIn profile!
When I went to BoyScouts, I had to accept the estabilished hierarchies and felt suppressed by them.
When I went to sport clubs, I've always been very good but never felt so confident of my means to become a real champion.
When I went to the College, I had a non good start, and run behind the better students.
During my life, I've always expressed great potentials without any excellent result. That would be depressing, but fortunately the rainbow always raises after the rain.
Once I termineated the college, I had to move from my small city, L'Aquila, due to the lack of work - open positions were reserved for the best only! - to Rome, where a company were interested about my programming skills...
That was the episode that saved me: I was totally alone, without any friend, facing my issues: I started understanding that I could have done much more of what I already did and, above all, I had no lack of meanings to achieve my objectives.
So, I started working really hard until starting contributing to the Apache Software Foundation: finally an environment that accepted for what I am, where I can freely express my thoughts without the worry of suffering the hard judgement of hierarchies or more qualified people, where I can fully provide my means to the community to help other people, actively contribute on writing code and release amazing components. I can now feel a true champion (not in the meaning everybody knows) but I won't ever forget where I come from.
I am finally part of something special that makes me feel special, thanks ASF!
I've been looked for my own identity for years, since I've always been sourranded by strong personalities, so it was quite hard for my understand which is my path.
When I went to school, I clearly remember I couldn't be a perfect student, there were excellent people like my really close friend Marco Giammatteo that were brilliant - and still are, take a look for example at his LinkedIn profile!
When I went to BoyScouts, I had to accept the estabilished hierarchies and felt suppressed by them.
When I went to sport clubs, I've always been very good but never felt so confident of my means to become a real champion.
When I went to the College, I had a non good start, and run behind the better students.
During my life, I've always expressed great potentials without any excellent result. That would be depressing, but fortunately the rainbow always raises after the rain.
Once I termineated the college, I had to move from my small city, L'Aquila, due to the lack of work - open positions were reserved for the best only! - to Rome, where a company were interested about my programming skills...
That was the episode that saved me: I was totally alone, without any friend, facing my issues: I started understanding that I could have done much more of what I already did and, above all, I had no lack of meanings to achieve my objectives.
So, I started working really hard until starting contributing to the Apache Software Foundation: finally an environment that accepted for what I am, where I can freely express my thoughts without the worry of suffering the hard judgement of hierarchies or more qualified people, where I can fully provide my means to the community to help other people, actively contribute on writing code and release amazing components. I can now feel a true champion (not in the meaning everybody knows) but I won't ever forget where I come from.
I am finally part of something special that makes me feel special, thanks ASF!