Richard Chow: Showing Up

Richard Chow learned at an early age that simply showing up was the main ingredient of success. But a tough medical diagnosis has challenged that idea.

As a teenager, the last thing I wanted to do was get up at 5 a.m. every morning. But I did, without fail. I needed to deliver the daily newspaper before my customers had their first sip of coffee.

In my college years, after a lackluster start, I reversed course and started showing up for classes. This initiated an intellectual curiosity that remains with me today.

Maybe, there was some validity to the notion that the secret to success is showing up.

By graduate school, my aspirations drove me to show up, even if it meant navigating through a blizzard to attend a lecture that instead became a chance meeting with the guest speaker, Malcolm Baldridge. The revered U.S. secretary of commerce was curious to meet the only other person foolish enough to brave the conditions.

Over the years — my daughters’ soccer games, meetings in the Indonesian jungles — I’ve shown up. It is ingrained in me.

Parkinson’s is a peculiar disease, one that I was diagnosed with eight years ago. It is the antithesis of showing up. Initiating movement is hard. Apathy, along with anxiety, is common. The world shrinks — isolation more pronounced.

My progression confirms this. Getting out of bed requires a herculean effort. Simply walking hurts. Not showing up is becoming the default option.

The pandemic only compounded my challenges.

I have had to reconsider this notion of showing up. Can showing up serve a different, but nevertheless, central role in how I contend with Parkinson’s?

Maybe, showing up is less about being aspirational for myself and more about supporting others on their journey, providing guidance and even inspiration as they find a path forward. Maybe, it is more about being in the moment — saying yes to a dinner with a friend, a hike, an excursion. Maybe, I need to show up for no other reason than to reassure my family, friends and others in my community that I am still showing up — that I am okay.

When seeing me — someone not in obvious decline — maybe they are reassured that they will be okay confronting their own adversity.

All of this reassures me. I will be okay, perhaps better than okay.

With a Perspective, I’m Richard Chow.

Richard Chow was a DCI Fellow at Stanford. He and his wife live in the Bay Area and try to keep pace with their college-age daughters.