Albin
It was a pleasure getting a chance to meet and talk with Albin, because we share something in common. Albin recently completed 100 interviews in 100 days, through his Question Number Five project, where he explored concepts of care and community. “Having spent the last two years researching Medicare reimbursement policies, the Affordable Care Act and other health care issues as part of my work at a communications firm, I’m convinced that care cannot only be about insurance or payment or access. I set out to find some answers but came up with five questions instead,” says Albin. To check out his 100 interviews and for more info on his project, visit albinsikora.com.
When I asked Albin what drives him, he simply replies that the newness of every day fascinates and drives him. He is compelled to follow what grabs his attention, sometimes to his own detriment he admits, but he lives his life moment to moment. “I’m a storyteller,” says Albin. Everything he does is some form of storytelling.
Does one have to be cautious or courageous to live in the present moment? After meeting Albin on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. one afternoon, I was convinced you must be fearless to truly live in the moment, not in the future, nor in the past. To surrender your expectations, your plans, your will and allow life, your heart, or for many, God, to guide your path through the unknown. It’s exciting, exhilarating, and terrifying. Albin lives by this truth daily.
When I asked him what season he was currently in, Albin replied, “If I could put it into an actual season, I would say summer because I’m equipped to live life.” He went on to add that all his experiences in life leading up to this current moment have prepared him and made him the man he is today. As our conversation carries on, Albin casually sits with a warm, humble attitude and an exuberant personality. Only thirty-six years young, but telling by his candor and the way in which he carried himself, you can sense that he has already lived a lifetime worth of life-changing experiences, stories, and memories.
Originally from Chicago, Albin fell in love with skateboarding at an early age. While many consider tearing down the streets, and just being on the streets in general, to be a reckless lifestyle, Albin embraced the opportunity to meet all different types of people and be comfortable with them. Later, he would distinguish embracing that intoxicating feeling of both riding a skateboard and connecting with others and the world as a form of fearlessness instead of recklessness. He thinks that fearlessness is what drives you to actually execute what you set out to do.
It was this same fearlessness that landed him in the nation’s capital, when he spontaneously moved to Washington D.C. without a job or knowing anyone, simply to experience something new and fill what he perceived to be a gap in his understanding of the U.S. because he sees himself as an ambassador of the country. Albin currently works in Public Relations for Powell Tate, and is no stranger to taking leaps of faith that most of us only dream of while spending a lifetime standing on the ledge. At the age of eighteen, Albin picked up and moved to San Francisco to attend university. As liberating and exciting as this new chapter in his life may have been, he recounts a sobering moment, when he fell and crashed while skateboarding down a steep hill in the city. While lying on the ground with the wind knocked out of him, bleeding from a few different parts of his body, Albin came to the realization that he was alone in a completely different city, and he would now have to rely purely on himself and watch out for his own well being.
Over the years, Albin has lived in numerous different cities, working various jobs, that were nothing short of interesting. While living in Los Angeles for a year, he worked as a daytime room service delivery boy at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, and recounts some of his hilarious celebrity run-ins and casual sightings during a day’s work. He also served in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria in a predominately Muslim community where he taught English courses, held job training courses and coached basketball.
During the 2000’s Albin saw a Hip Hop magazine with R Kelly on the cover, wearing ridiculously large sunglasses, he chuckled and told himself that he had to work for this magazine. Determined to work for this company, he looked up the address in New York City and strolled into the lobby of this Hip Hop magazine owned by Damon Dash, and asked for Smokey D. Fontaine. When Smokey made his way to the center of the loft office, with great moxie and not a second’s hesitation, Albin said he wanted to work for him, to which Smokey replied, “You start today.” Albin would go on to work for this magazine until he landed his dream job working at one of the biggest talent agencies in the world.
Another moment that changed his life was spending everyday with residents of public housing, undocumented workers and the homeless in Richmond, Virginia while working at the Legal Aid Justice Center. Albin believes it’s important to speak about injustice on social media but that is only one platform. People need to feel it in order to do something about it that reflects their own values, not those of anyone else. He recounts an unfortunate time when he witnessed an eighty year old woman get evicted from her project apartment because her grandson, whom she had not spoken to in years, was convicted of a drug felony across town. Her grandson was still on the lease and according to the law, if anyone living in public housing is convicted of a felony, everyone living in the apartment gets evicted.
When asked what piece of advice he would give his younger self, Albin replied, “Just keep on. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
When asked if he’s ever been in love, Albin went on to say that he was once, but didn’t realize that he loved a long time girlfriend until years later after the relationship was over.
Before he dies he wants to write a novel and have it published.
What I learned from my conversation with Albin is to trust your own life’s journey. Too many times in my life I lost love for myself or self-respect because I constantly compared myself to others and their experiences, or did not trust the process of life. As Albin proudly proclaims that he is equipped to live life, he exudes confidence and a sense that he is comfortable in his own skin and with who he has become. I may not be at Albin’s level yet, but I am now in a stage in my life where I’m beginning to love myself more and more each day. Many live cautiously in the future or in the past, but like Albin, we must relish in living fearlessly in the moment, ready to move to where our heart leads.
25 stories to go.
