So I had to do a reflective piece for one of the courses I am taking prior to the official start of school. The course, PCAP (or Personal Career Assessment Program) is about exploring what truly makes you tick so you can then use it as a guide post for school and creating that perfect career. Here is my entry for one particular assignement.
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So I am supposed to write an abbreviated version of my history that is more personal than a resume or vita. Interesting! Well, ok! This story will be cursory, as my story is way more complicated and painful than I am willing to share in this assignment.
It’s coincidental, but I was talking with my BF (boyfriend) the other week about the fact that I do not have any memory of my parents being married and together, though I know they were until I was 4 years old and I have one, exactly one, memory from that period (they were not in it, just me sitting in a room in front of a floor-to-ceiling window on a cloudy day looking at a playground beneath our apartment building). Anyway, so my memories begin after they’ve both separated.
My mother had my brother and me for a brief period, about a year or so, and moved us to another state. It was very evident, even then, that she was not ready to be a mother. (I was reminded later throughout the years, that she really never wanted to be one). Anyway, the self-fulfilling prophecy resulted in a controversy, to say the least, which stripped her of her parental rights, thus placing my brother and me in the care of my father. I am so thankful that he decided to stick it out and raise us, when doing so was totally outside of cultural norms (my father is Nigerian).
So this aspect of my life story (plus the MANY experiences since then) has been the framework for the other areas in my life – friends, strangers, school, and work. There are other buckets, but for the purpose of this exercise, I am just focusing on these.
School: I had always felt awkward or out of place in some sort of way growing up, but school and academics was always the place where I felt truly comfortable to be myself. Also, hyper-focusing on school helped me to block out the negative events in my life until I was ready to digest and develop a strategy to deal with them. Besides, it was easier for my dad and I to communicate via the language of school then to talk about the hard subjects and events / limelight that our family had been thrust into because of my mom. What I have noticed recently is that schooling when you are younger is totally different then schooling when you much older, the focus shifts from wholly technical to a mix of technical and social, with social outweighing the technical as you progress through your education. This is truly a paradigm shift for me because the technical aspects of it made it so much easier to deal with the fact that I felt like a social outcast – my family did not quite fit the norms, a man from foreign land raising his children as a single parent, a household income sandwiched us between the residents of the two neighborhoods that bordered our apartment complex, a seriousness (even at an extremely young age) about the social ills gripping my community and the world juxtaposed against a quirkiness (some said innocence) that screamed my naiveté. Although I had addressed the social element of schooling, it always opened the door to feeling pressed to answering the questions of why my situation was the way it was, so focusing on the technical aspects of school was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with the social component. Also, once in high school, I never had to really deal with the social component outside of school hours because I was always working – it was my way of contributing to the household income to alleviate some of the financial burden and fulfilling my goal of attaining complete financial independence.
Strangers / Friends: These two share a category because they are invariably connected. My mom used to have a phrase that she would say over and over again – “If your own mother can screw you over royally, think what someone else could do.” (This is a phrase she said repeatedly to me from the age of 5 through 18). Though I used to disagree wholeheartedly with those words, they held power and the lesson was ingrained. When I am attached to something, I am deeply committed, open, and there for the long haul. As such, I befriend people rather slowly. It all goes back to me not wanting to divulge too much about what has shaped me and feeling like there are few things/occurrences in my life with which others can relate.
Work: My dad took me to his job many times when I was young. He was completely active in organizations like the PTA, neighborhood and tenants associations, and the like; however, rarely did those spheres overlap with his social or home spheres. I did not realize then how much that influenced how I thought about work. I have always believed that work and home should be separate and never intermingled. For a while, I did not realize that that was some of the main reasons I felt disconnected from my school (which since 12th grade, I’ve viewed school as a job) and jobs. Again, this is something I recognize and am working to change, but doing so is a total paradigm shift.
Champion Mentality: If I have to look back at a theme that continues to recur in my life, it is the penchant I have for saving something or someone that others have written off. I am certain it is connected to the insights about me that I shared above. It was the case when I was young child having intensely emotional debates over the affects of poverty, locally and globally, and disparities in education and healthcare. It is a main reason why vehemently refused to go to a private school that would take me out of a community school – I felt that it would be a “slap in the face” to those in my community who did not have the same opportunity. Besides, I felt that I would ultimately be successful in life, regardless which path I took. (It was much later when I recognized the flaws in that logic and understood how much harm I could have truly done to my life’s trajectory…thankfully it all did work out!). Later in life, it was the reason why I left a corporate banking job to pursue education and nonprofit work (which has also been an enlightening experience). The list goes on, but the “champion” mentality has been my mentality for as long as I can remember and is rooted in the very vivid memories of those who championed me when they did not have to even after it felt like others had written me off.
This is a truly cursory look at a particular event in my life and its influence over successive events.
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Okay...so I've been trying to figure out for quite some time what my career will look like. Frankly, I was starting to believe that one just happens into a career and that careers are realized in hindsight; that you position yourself to seize and successfully execute on those, and you have to look back to see how the theme of a career unfolded. That sat very uncomfortable with me, but I did not have evidence to prove otherwise. I have to say that my time in Indianapolis with an extremely large pharma company (henceforth, referred to as "big pharma"), that will go unnamed, changed my perception in so many ways.
Never have I thought about the opportunities with one company for more than 4-5 years. I figured that because my desire is to continue developing myself and reaching further heights to stretch myself, that my pace will be out of pace with whatever company I am at (i.e., no room for stretch opportunities) and I would grow bored. I did not feel this way at big pharma. I could actually see down the road to the 10 and 15 year mark, and beyond. I saw the opportunities to contiuously be stretched, all while doing so much good in the world.
This experience has equipped me with a brand new framework to judge internship and full-time employment opportunities. Don't get me wrong. I am still concerned about the near-term and how those opportunities help me develop professionally and personally, but now I have a stronger concern for what those opportunities could look like over the longer term. Thanks big pharma!!
Wow...I cannot believe my last entry was in April '08. So much has happened since then...so many thoughts, emotions, and oh...just so much. I am officially unemployed. Last Thursday was my last day. Had an eye opening experience, but you'd think by now, i wouldn't be. Learned that not everyone has good intentions or even believes in fairplay...it's quite unfortunate, but my goal in life is to continue to live with integrity and treat others as if their motives are genuine and for the greater good, while not being suprised if time reveals otherwise. I continue to pray for grace and calmness when faced with storms.
I continue to prep for my move to VA and the beginning of a lon distance relationship with Adam.
I live by a quote of mine that reads, "Why strive for good when I can achieve greatness." I hung it in my office on the wall next to my computer; that way, I could always keep it in plain view. That quote accurately represented what I was about and what I had strived to become. That mantra cuts both ways - it can be highly inspirational and debilitating, if one's definition of greatness has no limits, i.e., nothing ever seems good enough.
It has been a while since I last wrote an entry and there have been a lot of events that have confirmed my strengths and revealed where I need some improvement. They have further opened my eyes to possibilities, forced me to realize the various resources I have at my disposal, and incited me to use those resources more efficiently and effectively. Overall, they have served to reconfirm my desire to pursue my goals, pick my battles wisely, and, in the end, trust the process.
I have a need (less so now than in the past) to attempt to control all aspects of my life and the external factors that influence it. It's taken almost twenty-seven years to truly realize that I cannot control everything, especially the external factors, and if I could, unlike in the past, I wouldn’t want to. Now, there are many times when I get close to reverting back to my old ways of "running" things, but there is a phrase that continues to filter my thoughts - "trust the process."
In the past few months I have spoken with a number of individuals (three in particular come to mind) who believe wholeheartedly in trusting the process. Furthermore, many of what seemed like some of my more bleak experiences have occurred over the past two years. However, some how and some way they seem to be coalescing into something more wonderful than I could have imagined. There are still a couple of situations that are currently stretching me and I am certain that as I progress through life I will continue to confront situations that test my will, values, strength, intelligence, and capacity to care; however, I am a bit more resolved in understanding that there is a process to all of this and the fundamental element of time impacting that process. Understanding this has helped me to better understand that trusting is so much easier if I continue to develop professionally and personally and allow my core values to continue to guide me. And I am resolved to doing just that.
Until next time…
I just received my first passport via snail mail this past weekend and I am ecstatic! I now have a newfound freedom contained in the palm of my hands. As long as I have a few dollars, my passport and an open mind, I am geographically boundless. Oh, I’ve traveled before to several states, Bermuda, and Mexico (before passports were mandated), but this gives me access to so much more.
I am multiethnic – African-American (which all on it’s on could be considered multiethnicJ) and African. My paternal roots are buried in the warm soil of Nigeria and I am a first generation Nigerian here in America. I feel it is now time for me to visit my other home and this passport will help facilitate that. The trip is scheduled for the end of December, during winter break. This will be the first of many overseas escapades and I am sure I will have many interesting stories to share with you.
I have finally taken the first step to chronicle this next stride on my life’s path. It’s been many months in the making, so there are so many events and reactions and emotions that have not been captured in real time, but I will do my best to weave them throughout future commentary.
There are a lot of new moving pieces in my life, like being accepted to business school, preparing for that transition, a budding relationship, and an internship in marketing. Accordingly, my goal with this virtual journal is to record as many of these moments as possible so I can reflect on where I was and how I have developed as a person because of those events. The irony of all of this though is that growing up I have never liked journaling, but for some reason I just cannot shake my desire to want to do this. And so my chronicling journey begins.
Well, that is enough for my intro. I now have to head out. I am off to my uncle’s store to take more pictures of his merchandise. My internship does not begin until 3/17, so I have given myself a new pet project to create an online presence for his store. I am super excited about it and he’s been a bit resistant with showing his excitement, but he’s coming around. J
Until next time…
