Can I give you some advice? No.

A few weeks ago, I received an email titled: Loyola University APIDA Celebration Keynote Invitation and my heart-stomach-brain-mouth did a collective:

I am often skeptical of someone giving me advice when they have seemingly zero context on my life. So instead of trying to write formulaic advice on the silver bullet hack to life (there is none and if you have found it don’t tell me, I won’t believe you), I started to list how I navigate the world now vs before (from the last time I graduated from an educational institution, over ten years ago).

Unsurprisingly, it became more of a smattering of slightly unhinged journal entry style reflections of all the things I was wrong about, and a few things I wasn’t, bookended with poems:

Back to my listicle of reflections - the researcher in me naturally synthesized them with a mindmap. I realized that so much of my living comes down to my relationship with 4 things: love, work, money & self, how I make trade-offs between them and how they affect each other.

My hope for whoever hears/reads this is that this offers you mirrors of relatability for the many fragmented versions of you, some allowance for mistakes you haven’t made yet and most of all a sense of possibility for the messy, alive, confusing, will-surely-come future.

Here go a series of non-advice acknowledgements from the notes app:

The Self

I was wrong to think we come of age once, that you have one profound experience, you become an adult and that’s it, you now know how the world works and who you are and what your place is in it. Lol. I have since realized that adulting is a recurring cycle of coming of age. This means that there are days it’s still messy, it’s still confusing and I won’t always have the answers. But equally, that there is and should always be a part of me that stays young, seeking, indestructible. And that profound experiences are rare but small internal shifts happen often, unexpectedly if I’m open to them.

Related side-bar that didn’t make it to the speech but sits in my heart like a welcome rock: Recently, I jokingly asked good friend and all around knowledge fountain B if they believed in destiny or karma, and they non-jokingly, instantly responded with - the world is a series of reciprocities, and that when we are not doing our part in that reciprocal, relational system, we are misaligned with the world and ourselves. And sitting across from them, sipping wine, eating too much cheese and laughing too loud for a Tuesday night, something internally shifted in my world and how I approach it.

I was wrong to try & hold an easy-to-understand one dimensional identity: This is convenient for the world, but curtailing for us. Growing up, there was so much pressure on the what do you want to be when you grow up question, not a who will you be, or how many versions of you will exist? On Friday, I prepared an AI strategy document for an executive at a Fortune 100 company, on Saturday morning I co-hosted a letter writing workshop with internet friends. Earlier this morning, I trash talked AI with a friend in academia. Next week, my cousins are visiting so we can go to a multi-course modern American dinner, last night I ate salty pretzels and a king sized kitkat for dinner. These are all me, and they are all valid full identities and often they are visibly in contradiction. You don’t have to be legible, you don’t always have to make sense to others, and your trajectory doesn’t have to be linear to be cohesive to you.

I was wrong when I said “that’s just how I am” when given feedback on who I was as a friend, peer, colleague, person: This was a tough pill to swallow for me, but I had to learn not to confuse authenticity with rigidity.

I was wrong when I treated self improvement like a hobby: Everyone is always talking about change, equally, ask yourself what’s worth preserving as I’m changing?Related - if I don’t have an internal standard about something, I am that much more susceptible to an external standard influencing me.

I was wrong when I said “this doesn’t have to be political”. Everything is political. Poems, art, work, money, love, what we can choose, what our money goes towards involuntarily, what we spend our money on voluntarily. It’s all part of a series of structures that pre-date us and are often not visible to us. And everyone is coping with the structure they came with, the programming they were given and the structures they want to enter/dismantle. I realized that while a lot of people care about similar things, they may not care similarly, or on the same schedule, or with the same intensity as me, everyone will have a different social issue hierarchy & a coping style that may not look like mine.

Love

I was right to hold close the whimsy: Find people who you can be petty, silly, weird with. I have found that it is the key to my sanity and my coping. And that in the sea of sameness (especially with tech headed where it is), the weird keeps you memorable. Say the obscure bird fact you know in a work meeting, someone will be excited to hear it.

I was wrong to think independence and self-sufficiency meant doing it all yourself: Be the hype person, be part of someone’s safety net. Also, know how to ask for help. You may not see it yet, but this - being and having a safety net, and actually making space to use it is an allowance to take risks.

Work

I was wrong to confuse my work with my career: There is my life's work and then there is the role I play at work.

Related side-bar that didn’t make it to the speech but haunts me in the best way possible: During an ISL visiting artist call Kaveh Akbar said to a room full of writers & poets to write the undeniable poem. For whatever our line of work and craft is (they may not be the same), ask not what is successful, but what can I create that is undeniable?

I was wrong to introduce myself as my job. I confused my job with my identity often. It took me years (and admittedly I am still learning) to not make work personal - this includes feedback, promotions, all of it. Those are rewards for & critiques of a role I am playing, they are not the words that should follow “I am” statements, because at work I am more the role than the person. Related, to remind myself I am employed. No work and no workplace is my family, and anyone who says that is either about to make excuses, allowances or requests for unprofessional behavior in the workplace.

I was wrong to bring my whole self to work: No matter what a company or your boss tells you, no one wants that and no one’s whole self will ever be (or should be) welcomed in a workplace. I sometimes have to check-in with myself to see are role and the person conflicting? If yes, I have a choice to make.

(Shout out to Rachelle who shared the you-don’t-have-to-bring-your-whole-self-to-work hot take in a public forum of young professionals I was part of last year!)

I was wrong in trying to win all the time. I was right to have a passion, to be really interested in something, and to want to be good at it. But I realized I was often confusing being productive with being creative, and the key wasn’t to be the best at everything but rather to cultivate a way of learning to have a perspective on anything.

I was wrong when I thought I had to answer every question someone asked me: If you don’t like the question someone is asking you, your response can be to reframe it or simply ask it back as a why question to them.

Example: A colleague said “Aren’t you so proud of your accomplishments as a woman?”And I said “why?”, but of course what I wanted to say was:

But also, I was right to learn to hold an argument that related to me without making it about me.

I was wrong for the amount I apologized and for my misplaced gratitude: I was right to acknowledge I didn’t get here by myself.

I was wrong to think my work will speak for itself: Know how to be humble, enthusiastic and loud in sharing work. What you think maybe a stupid question could be critical to the work you are doing, and one only you with your unique combination of experiences and skills is capable of asking.

And equally, that it’s important to have a clear sense of what you want to say before you start speaking, especially in initial interactions in professional spaces. Impressions build fast and judgmentally when you’re new, be conscious about the perception you want to create about yourself - this comes from what you say yes to, what you say no, when you speak up, when you show the maturity to do more homework before you interrupt a conversation with a half-thought.

I was wrong to measure my relevance with my visible utility: I measured my worth often in how much I had produced in the last week. I learnt over time to have a slightly longer horizon for growth, to be 6 months worth of patient.

Related side-bar that didn’t make it to the speech but I ask myself often: My cousin Anujasays she learnt from her kids’ PTA meetings to reframe growth: From “It’s been 6 months, am I growing?” towards “Have I had 6 months worth of learning?”

I was right to unpack my relationship with authority early: Know how to work with people; have a healthy relationship with authority that is authentic to you because it is unavoidable in a workplace, and someday you will inevitably have to be the authority on something/for someone.

I was right to hold contentment along side ambition. As my friend Sarah Free says - Enough is a feast.

Money

I was wrong to think money is an icky conversation: Learn to talk about money confidently and effectively, and soon. The first and initial salaries negotiate become your own anchor for expectation. Build a relationship with money.

Also, shout out to the magic of compounding interest & to Amma who told me from my first measly intern paycheck to 1) have a budget for necessary spending 2) set aside a portion of money at the start of the month, no matter how little it is.

A final note on the self, again: This is a lot to remember, and as a student of psychology I understand the value of heuristics and our brains need for simpler rules so…

TLDR for all of the above - How I make decisions now:

Will I grow resentful if I don’t do this/if I continue to do this?

Do I feel myself expanding or contracting in the presence of this person/role/challenge?

• a reminder to myself:

I am in flux. The world is in flux. Being consistent with my past self is a futile goal. I am allowed to change my mind.

Becoming Magical with Poetry - The Chicago Poetry Center

This past Monday the O-School’s Group C students dabbled in magic, potions, and spells. A poem is similar to a spell, each poem is unique, using powerful words and images. I asked students to imagine potions for real or fantastical things, such as potions for good grades, courage, or superpowers.

www.poetrycenter.org

because what’s better than wisdom that hasn’t aged?

If you thought the mindmapping was not real, lol.

Acknowledgements:* *A huge thank you to James Thomas, who considered me worthy of speaking to the treasured present & future; to Jamie Capetillo who was my first door of connection to Loyola University during Social Justice Week, my dear friend Darshita Jain who stuck through iterations of this from cathartic word vomit to synthesized unhinged feelings, Tristan Richards whose workshop I wrote the seeds of the poem Dear You in, and to CPC Poet-In-Residence Joy Young who serendipitously shared the classroom poem Potion for Success while I was preparing for this keynote.

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