Finding my why on a stair lift

My mother-in-law moved in a few weeks ago. She moved to the US from China permanently. She has mobility issues and it was clear that we needed to install a chair lift for one of the staircases in the house.

A brand new chair lift costs about $4000 with installation. To save money, I tried looking up a used one on Facebook marketplace. They were still going for $1,000 or more. It wasn’t clear what condition of these chairs are in and whether I can successfully disassemble and install.

To my great luck, after several days of looking up on Facebook, I saw this new listing where someone was giving a stair lift for free.

This is the listing I came across before the status was updated to “sold”

I messaged him immediately. Turns out, I discovered his listing within minutes of him posting and I was one of the dozen messages he received. He told me he didn’t want to give it to anyone who was going to sell it for profit. His mother passed away at age 97 and he wanted the lift to go to good hands and help someone. My inquiry containing my mother-in-law’s hip injury came across most genuine and thus he picked me as the “winner”.

The lift I picked up turned out to be the latest model from the most popular brand. I felt truly lucky that day.

Installing the rail and the chair in my house turned out to be a lot more challenging than I thought. I had to utilize every handyman skill I had under my belt. At one point, I thought I would give up and order a new unit with installation service. In the end, after a week or so, I got it all up and running.

I had to disassemble the battery, reconnect some yanked wires and adjust the angle of the seat in addition to moving the charging points on the rail by drilling new holes throughout the aluminum rail. Then I had to resolve a lot of error codes on the device.

Installation all finished!

After I finished installing, I asked myself “how do other people afford this?”Installing a used unit clearly was not for everyone. The rail and the chair are extremely heavy to transport and there is a lot of work needed to be done to tailor the installation for each household. If you go for a new unit and have a company perform installation, it costs a lot. Not many people can shall out $4,000 for a stair lift. I figured there must be many who cannot afford this solution. They have no option but to deal with physical pain on every climb (if they can even climb).

Recently, I finished reading Simon Sinek’s Start with Why. Since then, I have been thinking about what my why is. His subsequent book Find Your Why helps you with that task. Instead of reading that book, I looked up the book summary online and found out that the key idea is to review the major events in your life and identify a consistent theme across those events.

At first, I failed to see any consistent themes across the key events of my life. Then, as I saw myself questioning the affordability of the stair lift, visualizing the large group of people who have no choice but to continue to suffer, it hit me.

I care about helping those who are less fortunate.

1. I built a popular online community while I was in college to help students and landlords connect. My website offered much better search and browsing experience compared to any competitor websites. But I remembered I did not build my site to offer that experience. I built it because I was upset about landlords forcing students to sign 12-months lease and make them pay for 4 months of rent for vacant apartment in the summer. I wanted to empower students (this is what Simon calls the “why”) with a platform (the “what” and the “how” according to Simon) where they can advertise their apartment and get the maximum exposure. Providing the best search experience was one way to do it.
2. I donated my hard earned cash to several non-profits that help those who are less privileged. One of them is a leadership institution where I benefited from in my 20s. I am from an immigrant family with zero connections to anyone highly successful and I was given the chance to interact and learn directly from accomplished individuals that wanted to give back. Another one is a non-profit farm where I personally volunteered with the goal of helping the poor in Africa access clean water and generate food. My wife and I also financially support students in rural China who have no access to quality education.
3. I spent my limited PTOs to visit remote places in the world because I was more interested in experiencing the lifestyle of those less fortunate. I could have chosen to go to Paris, but I chose to go to rural India and I am glad I did so. I got to see and experience real poverty and the new perspectives I gained from that trip are invaluable to me.
4. I used to tell my wife as we drive by beautiful oceanfront mansions in my town that if I get to own one of those mansions someday, I’d love to provide my yard for free to host weddings of those who cannot afford a nice venue. I used to think that is a rather random thought, but now looking back, it is consistent with other events above.

With this new discovery, I feel I have a new filter to evaluate opportunities with. Whatever I pursue next, I am going to ask why I want to do it and whether my answer fits with my mission above.

From getting a free chair lift by logging into Facebook at the right time to discovering my mission through all the hard work of installing the lift, what a journey it has been!