The Challenge:

Set a timer for 12:00, let it count down.

You must first reduce your goal in life into a catchy motto you can say to someone in an elevator.  It should be short, it should be witty, but not too witty.  If your goal is droll, so much the better, if not, don’t waste words..

While thinking of how to condense your life’s work into a catch-phrase, and being mindful of the timer, imagine a child battling cancer.  This kid, a nine year-old, runs out of the school in a panic, asks you to get him a gun so he can kill himself.  Professes not to care that he will destroy the lives of his parents and cause bitter tears for all who love him.

The kid draws a series of pictures, the stick figure, labeled “me”, under the force of a giant, powerful magnet that is zapping him with rays.  In the next frame the stick figure is broken on top of a bloody pyramid, the magnet is inverted and the power is off.   Everything looks dead.

In the third frame there’s the stick figure, labeled “me”, bent in half, its head on the ground.  In the next frame he is standing.  In the final frame he seems to be exerting a reverse magnetic force and is repelling the magnet.

Our fifth grade interviewer, Elijah, will certainly want to ask about these drawings.

“What are you expressing in this series of frames?” Elijah might ask.   And the suicidal young artist would go into his explanation.

While working on the motto and considering how to proceed with the boy seemingly hell-bent on taking his own life, think of a two year projected budget to fund a project that is vital to your own peace and happiness, and to the peace and happiness of countless others.

Not that there is necessarily much peace and happiness in the remaining 37 seconds.  Geez, I wish I’d starting coming to the point ten minutes ago.  Look, there’s 13 seconds yet, now, eight and, soon enough, the final buzzer.