Setting the bar at a more accessible level

More thoughts from the no man's land between academic training and full employment:

A friend of mine is pregnant and has been cheerfully complaining about the amount of unsolicited advice that comes her way, and questions about the gender and name of her not-yet-born child. Her remark made me think: I too am at a pause (or what will likely be seen as a tiresome gap on my resume), and if I hit the 9-month mark, I could well have completed the equivalent of a human pregnancy. And what had this gestation period produced? I think a few life lessons, as the troughs in most lives invariably do. I am unsure if these lessons will stick with me for long, but regardless, here they are:

Lesson 1: Do not be surprised if people you thought knew better, start to question your professional credibility.

"I mean you can be a bit slow and too-focused on one thing", a friend Annie said.

"Well, I thought you loved that about my work ethic", said I, somewhat injured and infuriated.

"I did, when you were validated in my eyes by a fancy job. Otherwise, I wouldn't know the difference between being detail oriented (in a productive way) and just splitting hairs in order to annoy those around you. I have no way of judging your work-related abilities. Sorry!", said Annie.

(This last bit is what I reckon might have been going on in my friend's mind as she processed my words in a stony silence.)

I have been a participant in such an interaction at least a few times over the past few months. One of the people who seemed doubtful of my abilities was a person who had, over a decade and a half ago, been in a situation much like mine. I had decided to christen her Annie to preserve her privacy. To this date, "Annie" fumes as she recites the experience of having a close friend of hers doubt her professional abilities while she stayed under-employed for a few years. Yet, my dear Annie, who is now gainfully and successfully employed for about a decade, felt no sense of irony when she meted out the exact same treatment to me.

In my naivete, I had imagined she would understand exactly what I was experiencing as I sought appropriate career options. In fact, I imagined she would proffer her own experiences as testament to the fact that periods of transition within one's employment history could be survived successfully, keeping one's sanity intact. Instead, she chose to mock me (perhaps unintentionally and without any witting malice).

My initial response to her callousness has been to start to distance myself from her, and let her calls go directly to my answering machine. Since the incident, and after some rumination and advice from wiser people, I have also realized that it would be disadvantageous for me to hold any grudges against Annie or others like her. We are, after all, fallible humans who are designed for inadvertent cruelty. I myself have doled out my fair share of callous remarks (unwittingly, I like to believe) even though I might not recall the details of the specific remarks and incidents around them.

Here is a wonderful blogpost on the same concern: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/7-things-to-remember-when-people-dont-support-you/

For most of us these days, our workplace is our world where we spend upwards of 45hours every week. As a result, what works in the workplace is what we try to build within ourselves. And in most fast-paced workplaces, deep introspection that results in true self-awareness is hard to achieve. Moreover, changing ourselves according to the outcome of our self-introspection is harder still. Furthermore, I too am guilty of not having supported the ambitions of others or even understood them. I have, many times in the past, judged people well simply because of the social currency accorded to their current designation. Alternately, I have misunderstood or under-appreciated the skill of those whose work may not carry the appropriate social heft. So, I cannot complain when a friend devalues my professional merits simply because I am currently underemployed or unemployed.

Lesson 2: Try to not judge people harshly who are not as supportive as you might want them to be.

Afterall, it takes an inordinately amount of skill to pull ourselves out of our own lives and focus on supporting others. I know I have been indifferent in what I believed was a well-intentioned manner to many people in the past. So, I have no business complaining if a handful of others appear to be doing the same to me. It is best for me to conserve my limited energy reserves to do something pleasant and productive, and carping or loathing others cannot be that pursuit. Not by a long shot.

In my own experience, in order to stay indifferent and positive towards people I have found unsupportive of my current pursuits, it is imperative that I stop interacting with them for a while. Often, this means I do not attend their calls, think of them or meet up with them. Instead, I shift my time and focus on staying positive, enjoying my hobbies, and trying to get better to achieve my goals. If the said person has some expertise in my area of work, this does mean having to give up (if only temporarily) the possibility of seeking their help. But in my experience so far, seeking help from someone who does not really understand your needs, ambitions or interests is a wasted exercise because the said person is ill-equipped to provide you with useful advice anyway! In fact, my most accessible, useful advice often comes from people who might be far removed from my professional interests but who understand the emotional and intellectual reasons behind my specific professional ambitions.

Lesson 3: Choosing more situation-appropriate role models to keep in mind your goals and proclivities as you trudge along.

When I was younger, Tiger Woods was a huge role model for me even though I hadn't really cared about golf. I basically, enjoyed the motivational advertisements he featured in when he was in his professional prime. Much has altered since then in his life and mine. For one, I no longer identify with the big, celebrity role models. I seek people whose work is similar to mine, and who are accessible because they are not living in the glorified world of celebrities. Moreover, these are people whose abilities and reserved of energy and discipline seem no more or less than my own.

One such recent role model is a blogger who maintains a wonderful blog in which he has been posting regularly for over 5 years. Over the years, he has gathered an interested, handful of readers who enjoy and eagerly await his posts. In addition, there are others like myself who stay curious about his abilities to write and maintain a blog although he is, like me, not trained or schools in writing. As I am moving closer towards my goal of being a communicator of science, especially through informal writing, I find his work inspiring. I do not, I have to admit, enjoy all, or even most, of his writing as the subjects and worldview he represents are not of a deep interest to me. However, I am inspired by the fact that he was able to forge his way ahead in a medium and pursuit that is often hard to break into or be taken seriously.

In comparison, a writer like Khalid Hossenni, whose works I love, is less of a role model precisely because his success is, and has always been, so sudden, dramatic and inexplicably huge. From being a star internist he, seamlessly it would appear, transitioned into a respected, best selling novelist.

Below is an image of another beloved role model who has stayed inspirational for me all these years (although to be fair, his success is far too immense to be considered accessible or smaller in scale):

As they say, smaller may not suffice for another, but for me, it might well be more than enough!

Thanks for reading (or skimming, or page-visiting :-))!