5 Things I've Learnt at 37
I tried to spend time writing this article properly, just like I’ve done in the previous year. And although I just couldn’t find the time, I wanted to commit myself to doing this yearly.
So here goes, in a short version, five lessons that the past year has taught me.
If you create value that people want, people will come, even if you disappear:
We live in a world where we are told to continue producing and putting ourselves out there, especially with social media. You know, you have to be present, you have to be visible.
What the past one year has shown me, however, especially because I just went off the things that I do normally — social media, speaking opportunities, interviews, all of that — is that if you’re creating value that solves a real problem (and it’s not just about being away) people will find you.
I think it was an Oscar winner that talked about the virtues of scarcity in this day and age (and it’s not scarcity for scarcity sake — it’s scarcity so that you can be with yourself and be able to actually create value for yourself and for others).
That has been a powerful lesson.Work gets a bad reputation:
People often say things like ‘your work should not be your life’. They make it seem as if work itself is a dirty word that we do. Even when we talk about work-life balance, we talk about how work should be balanced with life, as if work is separate from life.
What the past one year has taught me is that work is dignifying, that actually, there is nothing wrong with work being part of the centre of your life. We often treat work like a leper, like something we just have to do — something that if we dedicate time towards, we are essentially not living well. But there is dignity in work. There is a beauty to work.
The thing about work is that it is the one place where we serve other people apart from ourselves, where we serve an ideal apart from ourselves, where we create value. A person who runs a hotel, a person who creates a tech service, is doing something for someone other than themselves and those around them. I think there is something pure about that kind of giving of self. I spent some time in the past year being by myself, trying to do no work, and I realised that while my relationships were strong, my faith was strong, everything was great, the lack of work became a missing link.
There is nothing wrong in work giving us meaning. There is nothing wrong in applying ourselves to creating things of value. We should not behave as if this is something questionable or objectionable, as far as, with all things, it is done in proportion.Let time work for you:
This is, strangely enough, a lesson I learnt from my YouTube page. You should let time work for you.
I used to be in a hurry. ‘oh! I need to post this at this time’, ‘I need to schedule this at this time’, ‘we need to send this press release at this time’, but the team that works on my YouTube taught me that, ‘No! you can wait and those things will still come’.
You can post that video one week after, and the views will still come. You can post that video, and then, the blogs don’t carry it immediately. But you just post it and go, and it will eventually happen.
One of my guests said to me that, ‘I like time because everything manifests in its time’.
I’ve learnt not to rush; I’ve learnt to allow time work for me.On Rights and Identities:
Many years ago, I wrote something about future rights — about how, in the fight for some rights now, what is more important is to create a space for the rights in the future to be respected.
And that idea of future rights, even I struggle with some issues of identity now that don’t make logical sense to me. As I struggle with that, I remember that we cannot get to a point where we say we understand X right, but only that one is worthy of being protected, because others are being dramatic.
No! We should hold space for the fact that as future rights and future identities emerge, we will struggle simply because of the fact that they’re new. And there’s a humility to saying, ‘I could be wrong, Let me pay more attention’.Empathy:
Between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I dealt with a mini-crisis in my life that torpedoed my entire sense of my self, of who I am, of what I’ve done in the world, of how I’ve showed up in the world — if I’ve been acting right. And it helped change me, some of my actions, and some of my behaviours, and just helped me look at myself in a different way. But it wasn’t just that.
What it taught me was an empathy that I didn’t have before. You know, accepting my own flaws and blind spots helped me access a deeper part of me through more compassion and more empathy. I realised, for instance, that I became a much better interviewer and a much better listener because confronting myself helped me suspend judgement.
I look at human beings now with an empathy that is overwhelming. It helped me have a better understanding, I think, of the idea of God’s love, the idea of God being able to forgive anything. I’m not in that space, but I see the beauty.
Suspending judgement, having empathy for people, including people who you think are bad, understanding that in certain conditions, people, sometimes, even with good intentions, can do wrong helps you build an empathy that actually can help you begin to change people, to influence them, to transform them. Or maybe not really for those big goals — just helps you to own yourself, take responsibility, and become a better person because now, you understand that you yourself are flawed, deeply (sometimes, maybe not as deeply). And because you empathise with others, you can empathise with and forgive yourself.
Therefore, it is easy to acknowledge when you’ve gone astray and when you need to do better.
That has been beautiful!