And never be afraid to keep on growing.I find that I always struggle to write about my life experiences, particularly my most significant ones. How can I condense something that feels so important, such as this fellowship experience, into a series of words in a singular language? Maybe it sounds dramatic, but it’s true. I often wonder if my words can even do my experiences enough justice. I was recently reminded, though, that language is really the only way in which we can connect with other people. Human beings have no alternative means of sharing our life experiences with each other. There’s no Martian mind-melding the likes of which exists in comics and we have yet to develop a means of communicating via telepathy. It would have been impossible for me to document everything that happened via video, and the parts of it that grew me as a person can’t really even be communicated that way. So words will have to do, for now. I think it’s ironic that I wrote my introductory blog post using the metaphor of a butterfly. Honestly, at the time, I did not think it would serve any significant purpose for me later on. I noticed that one of my friends had used metaphoric language in his blog post and I was like “Oh sweet. Looks cool. I’ll do that too!”. So I did. But it was significant. Because, like a butterfly, I did grow. In ways that I could never have imagined. Over the course of this 9 month fellowship, I transformed from a caterpillar into a butterfly. A small butterfly. I still have a long ways to go before I’m big and strong and ready to take on the world with my full potential in my back pocket. But still, a butterfly. Metaphoric and linguistic analyses aside, however, I think part of me is actually a little hesitant to write about how much I’ve grown. I am arguably a different woman than the one I was when I began the fellowship. Most importantly, my values shifted tremendously. At the time of the fellowship, I had just become a Truman finalist. I was working hard to juggle 30 units of classes and get straight A’s. I was juggling at least 10 different extra-curricular activities. And I was running away from a lot of pain. Still. I had been for a few years and working myself to death was one of my main coping mechanisms. The most recent jarring event had been that everything I thought I knew about my religious beliefs and my relationship with Islam had been completely shattered. This led me to stop wearing my hijab and slowly stop adhering to any of the religious commandments. For so long I had continuously tried running after God and seeking his love and approval. Or so, I thought. In reality, I was seeking the love and approval of “religious” people. The basis of my religious beliefs had been allowing other people to define what religion was for me. As a result, I could never quite meet their standards and it made me completely miserable. Even suicidal at times. If God didn’t love me, who would. Why did I even deserve to be alive? All of that coupled with years of severe trauma created a strong need within me for external validation. And, to some degree, I was getting it. Awards, praise, and a full resume sustained me for a good, long while. And the Truman, I thought, might be the pinnacle at which point people would be satiated with me. And I could finally be satiated with myself. The fellowship began in the middle of this process and Sammi and I started working on our project for a different Indian-based social enterprise than the one we ended up working for. The class itself challenged us. We put a lot of effort into the work that we were doing. Sometimes, we were met with nothing but support from our social enterprise. One of the female employees always tried to look for ways to support us in our ideas and guide our beliefs. Other times, we were met with sexism, quite frankly, from one of the male employees at the company. Which isn’t completely unexpected. As someone who is half-Indian, I have seen and experienced elements of Indian culture that can feed into sexism. Despite this, however, we were excited to dive straight into our fellowship in India. In the process, I was notified that I did not advance to becoming a Truman scholar. And so began the long journey of my starting to change my values. Not advancing, hit me harder than it should have. Instead of feeling proud of myself for having been a finalist in the first place and being thankful for the opportunity, I was so angry at myself. I was sure I had messed up the interview and said some completely stupid things. And I was suddenly exhausted. I had to take a step back and ask myself: why am I doing all of this? Why am I working so hard? What am I putting all of this effort into, at the end of the day? What am I aiming for? Who am I doing this for? And why am I always so miserable all the time? On top of everything, I was struggling in my classes, unnecessary interpersonal drama plaguing one of my extracurricular activities was slowly destroying my mental health, and I had relapsed back into a familiar pattern of severe depression which fed into a pattern of PTSD nightmares fueled by trauma in my youth. I tried to hold everything together with a smile, but even the smile started to slip. The universe had a special concoction of hardship for me during spring quarter of my junior year. Following this whole process, a few weeks later, I found out that I did not get the visa to go to India because I was born in Pakistan. Suddenly the entire fellowship seemed to be turned on its head. I remember nearly being in tears over the phone with Keith as I asked, “So…am I even going to get to do this fellowship over the summer?” he paused before reassuring me that he and the Miller Center would definitely find a way to make it work out. We tried everything. We went to Ro Khanna’s office and tried to see if there was a way for the Congressman to push the Indian Consulate to let my visa in. There was no way. I was not going to India. And I felt horrible for Sammi because the whole situation affected her too. Honestly, I felt like the very act of my having been born had just thrown everything into a mess for everyone. I felt bad. I felt like it was my fault. When I am at my lowest points in life, the only thing that keeps me from completely falling apart and ending it all is hope. It’s that small glimmer of faith that things will maybe just all work out at the end of the day that keeps me going. Hope is the foundation of resilience. Without it, we have nothing as human beings. Why do I have hope? Because the universe has proven to me so many times that even when you think that things could not get any worse, life will always find a way to patch things up again. And sometimes, things get really bad right before they get better. In our case, things got so much better. Wildly so. In ways that I could never have expected. 3 weeks before we took off for the fellowship, Sammi and I got paired with All Across Africa to do a project that both of us were so incredibly passionate about. Allie, the COO, was in town within that 3-week period and so we even got to meet with her and discuss how the whole thing would happen. I remember when Sammi and I had our first Skype call with the staff of All Across Africa in Rwanda and Uganda. And I remember texting Sammi afterwards being so excited. Everyone was so kind and funny and fantastic in the call. Little did we know, they would be even more amazing in person. Before we knew it, we were packing our bags and flying out to Uganda and Rwanda. And let me tell you, the experience was life-altering to say the least. It was without a doubt, the best two months of my entire life. I’ve touched upon this in some of my earlier blog posts, but when I was in East Africa I had the privilege of experiencing genuine happiness. Happiness that was totally divorced from a need for external validation. No one in Uganda cared about my extracurricular activities or my grades. If I’d told anyone that I had been a Truman finalist, people wouldn’t probably have even known what that was because it was so irrelevant to them. Instead, I felt like I finally had the opportunity to be myself. I was definitely known as the extrovert among the staff. I was always laughing with everyone and having fun. We would have impromptu dance parties at the office and, when we’d visit the villages, the women and I were always laughing together as I’d try my hardest to talk to them in Luganda. But even better than all of that, was the way in which I connected to people there. I remember one of the artisans in our favorite co-op in Uganda spoke English and was Muslim. She and I had a long conversation about the differences in how Islam was practiced in Uganda and the United States, which led to another conversation about practicing Islam as a whole. In Uganda, I felt almost naked without my hijab. So many women wore it and I wanted so badly to just say “Salaam” to every Muslim I saw. I had that strong desire to connect over that shared bond of religious belief. I contemplated what the sudden difference was. I even remember making a special effort to go to the Gaddafi mosque before we left. Our plane for the US was going to leave in a few hours and I just had to see the mosque once before we left Uganda. I sat there, alone after Jummuah prayers and wondered what compelled me to want to be there so badly. I’d felt so hurt by religion for so many years. In my past, religion had been used to constantly shame me and make me feel worthless. It had been used to justify my being emotionally, verbally, and physically abused. In some ways, things related to religion had even led to my being sexually abused. So what changed? What was it about practicing religion in Uganda that felt so different? Like many journeys in life, that’s a journey I’m actually still figuring out. When we were in Rwanda, I was so touched by how everyone had worked so hard to overcome their suffering. They had built such a beautiful, hard-working community of people with such fantastic values. Gender equality is something that is so prized in Rwanda. Universal healthcare allows everyone, rich or poor, to access their right to good health. Umuganda day embodies the community values by encouraging everyone to take care of their people. My mother’s side of the family is Kashmiri. Kashmir is known as the Valley of Blood. The genocide there has stolen countless lives and thousands have been impacted. I’ve never even been able to go back to my mother’s ancestral land because of the violence and because of where I was born. I learned so much from being able to talk with people in Rwanda about their genocidal past. And I learned so much about overcoming grief. The women we interviewed there have hearts that are so full of forgiveness for others. And they work so hard and so tirelessly to support other women in their communities. Why? What was it about people in Rwanda and Uganda that made them so kind? So open to sharing their lives with me and talking to me about life. So hard-working and driven and community-oriented? Why did they care? Did they want to “make a difference in the world”? Were they seeking happiness and self-fulfillment? What was their definition of success? What was it about their values that allowed them to live the lives that they lived? What did social engagement look like to them? And why was I so happy interacting with the people there and so miserable all the time in the US? I’ve thought about it a lot. And I think I've realized the difference. People there just lived. They wanted to make a difference in the world not to “make a difference” as we know it, but because they were driven by a genuine desire to fill a need in their community. The women that took on the co-op leadership role wanted to do so because they wanted to help guide and lead their community members to being successful in their own ways. They wanted to help women provide for their families and create a healthy, loving environment and support network for their peers. Why? Because it was important to them. And they probably weren’t even thinking so hard about it. And when I was in Rwanda and Uganda, if I ever had the opportunity to help others (which I did), I also found myself not thinking so hard about it. Sometimes other people would do so, on my behalf. “You can’t help that person with that?” “Why?” “It’s unethical. You’re being a savior?” “No…I don’t see it that way? I’m helping them out the way I’d help anyone out. I’m being normal. I don’t see this as a big deal.” And when I’d have conversations with some of the All Across Africa staff in Uganda about it, they’d agree with me. No one saw helping other people as a big giant deal the way people often do in America. And I think that comes as part of communal culture. In Rwanda and Uganda, nobody needed a big pat on the back for being a decent human being. In America, everyone seems to need that in some way, shape, or form. You can’t do something nice for someone or raise money to help people or do something good without throwing it on your resume or getting media attention for it or marketing it for reasons why you should be hired. And that sucks. It literally sucks the humanity out of just being a good person and doing things because you just want to be kind and love others. Why do we all have to “make something BIG out of ourselves”. Why can’t we just make something and do good work and not be so worried about the outcome and how it makes us look and getting validation from everyone over it. This process has completely impacted my vocational discernment. I no longer want to care about doing things to be big or to be “successful”. I want to define success on my terms. I want my legacy in the world to not be a legacy at all. I don’t want to care about what other people think about my work, so long as it is creating the positive impact I want it to create. I want to pursue a vocational path because I want to pursue it. Because I want to use the gifts that God has given me to do something that means something more than a few words on a sheet of paper, some plastic awards, and a few claps at a public event. This fellowship has provided me with the freedom I needed to create my own path in life. Which is why, I'm spending my gap year, after college, exploring opportunities by which I can pursue the research that I want to pursue in fields that matter to me. One of those fields is women and children's mental healthcare. As a victim of abuse, I often struggled to find access to the resources I needed when I needed them. As a woman of color and an immigrant, it was particularly difficult for me to find resources that worked -- even when I did find them. Culturally competent mental healthcare is a salient need in so many communities. I even saw a need for it in Uganda and Rwanda over the summer. Multiple co-op leaders discussed with us how life-changing it would be if their artisans could have access to better mental healthcare. GSBF has, thus, empowered me by allowing me to both see the ways in which I can use my abilities to transform my life and the lives of others. It has also made me a little bit more fearless in the pursuit of my own life path. And that was my journey to becoming a small butterfly. I’m heading towards a process where I no longer really care about external validation. Because it’s meaningless. And that's a good thing. It means that I am one step closer to carving out my own, meaningful path for myself. It means that my desire to do something in life is no longer motivated by external factors. It's motivated by me and my goals to make this world a little bit better for everyone, starting with my own community and the lives of people that I touch. A week ago, I was on the phone with one of my mentors both in life and for the fellowship itself. We were talking about my life path and I was blubbering on about how I didn’t know where I wanted to go and how I was so sick of constantly feeling the need to validate my experiences through other people’s praise and opinions. As we spoke, a spider began crawling on the ceiling of my room. Normally, I’d jump from the couch and try to get as far away from it as possible. In recent conversation, however, he and I had been talking about totem animals. Animals that have significant meaning in our lives if we see and notice them often. My main one was a crow: the symbol of new perspectives in life. I kept staring at the spider and it kept crawling towards me. I moved spots. It stopped. And began crawling towards me again.
“Dr. Carroll,” I asked, “What does the spider totem mean?” “Spiders are weavers. They weave the webs they want to create. They are the makers of their own destiny.” “Which means?” He paused, before replying: “Weave the web you want to love.”
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