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I have been an employee at Genentech, a biopharmaceutical company for roughly 9 years now.

Wow.

It's nuts to say what the view looks like when I reflect back on that lucky college graduate who got a contractor position in manufacturing within downstream purification. 

Getting a job at Genentech was life-defining.

Why?

It was a goal I had had since I was 16.

When I was in high school I took a course in biotechnology, where I learned about Genentech as the first synthesizers of synthetic human insulin, a massive achievement in the cause of improving access to healthcare for everyone.

Access to medicine mattered to me a lot.

Why?

As an asthmatic, I have depended on medicine to live through one wheeze to the next for as long as I can remember.

I don't remember a time in my life where I was not prescribed an inhaler, so it's safe to say I've always known life to need one. 

If you don't bring your inhaler, you're in for trouble.

And I would be.  

The mere realization I was somewhere precarious where I would need it would literally set off an asthma attack about it.

Girl! What a diva!

But the point I'm making is that, for me, going into an industry focused on achieving new solutions for the next 'me' was where I wanted to be.

I wanted to help people.

It didn't matter what form that took for me, ultimately.

But if I were to define a penultimate version of myself that I idealized as a child, I was to become an inventor of great things.  An artist in the creation of solutions and hope for others.

I had a dream.

I also had a dad that has worked harder than you on any given day you ever have in your life, and he'll probably tell you about it too!

Regardless, I had a dad that showed me early on that life was a struggle. That life could be unfair, at best.

That wasn't meant to be taken in pessimism.  More so that reality is better accepted than ignored if we are to work with it.

It ultimately made me unafraid of the challenges I set out for myself in earnest as I set out to live a waking dream.

When I consider the dream for what it was, it was nothing like what it took to get there.

Meaning.

Girl, if you want what you want to have, you betta work!

And work I did. I worked my ass off.

I put incredible time and energy into learning all subjects in schools to as much extent as I could.

An ingenious inventor isn't shy of any knowledge, no matter how scary or out of scope it feels to the cause of the dream.

If one is to help others, one must know how.

Not everyone needs help in the same way. 

Not everyone needs the same help.

Not everyone helps those in need.

But everyone benefits when someone's needs are met.

My needs are met when everyone's needs are met.

Which is to say, my needs will never be met.

Which is fine.

For an inventor is never done.

The point of the pursuit is not to achieve, but to persist.

And persist I shall.

...

...so long as an inhaler is in sight.