walking away from money
'Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.' - Charles Kettering
Episode 3 of “Participation; Aishwarya’s startup journey”. Read Episode 2 to catch up.
Many years ago I had a shattering professional experience that made me doubt if I was smart or capable. I had thrived in an academic setting but was unprepared for how male-dominated the professional world would be. Caught off guard by the decision-making power given to the men around me, I struggled to adapt to the masculine culture norms I suddenly needed to adhere to if I was to be heard. Today, almost six years from that fateful day, I am writing to you as someone at the beginning of building her own world.
Risk
Who do we become when we take a risk? Maybe the risk is choosing to be in a relationship even though we know many end poorly. Maybe it’s a political risk, taken in fierce adherance to personal values. Or it’s a career risk where you move from the norm to the new. I believe that in all these contexts a risk is about telling the truth — to oneself, to another, and to the world.
I was doing the math in the shower yesterday to calculate how much guaranteed money I walked away from when I left my job. As time passes, that amount only increases. So then, did I take the risk for the hope of better financial outcomes? No, because that’s only one part of the equation.
A duty to express
As a little kid I loved reading Calvin & Hobbes. I remember reading this strip and realizing that I wasn’t the only kid who believed she was simultaneously insignificant and the center of the universe.
As a chubby and chronically underestimated little girl I believed that someday greatness would be ‘thrust upon me’. Now at age 30 my feeling about this has changed. I’m not so sure that fantastical opportunities will fall in my lap and am much more certain that I will create them for myself. I am also not fixated on ‘greatness’ and am, instead, focused on ‘duty’. Duty to self, family, community, and humanity — as relevant to my spheres of influence.
Another preoccupation for me from a young age was that I was very special (each child is, indeed, beautiful and special. And yet we are quick to call adults generic). Well, I still believe I am special. Maybe this comes from growing up brown in Oregon in the 90s, but I have always felt unshakeably, unrelentingly unique.
The duty I feel to myself is to let this uniqueness express itself. What am I? A writer? Philosopher? Designer? Storyteller? An interdisciplinary creative like Virgil Abloh? I could not tell you my one designation except that I need it to burst out of me and into the world. It is in search of this that I walked away from many, many thousands of guaranteed dollars.
Putting creativity and human wellness first
In these early days of research and exploration, I am intensely observing the role of technology in my life. What it allows me to do, who it connects me to, how it makes me feel, and the other ways in which it is constantly shaping me. Back in 2010, my high school Christian Ethics teacher would ask us everyday, ‘who are you today and who are you becoming?’ He even kept a mirror on both sides of his door for us to look at ourselves on the way in and out of his classroom. How would we change over the course of a school year?
Today a force more powerful than religion exerts itself on my life. It is ubiquitous, omnipresent, and overwhelming. Many times I feel unable to escape it and submissive to its will. This force is social media and the news, information, and knowledge it delivers me. Every day I listen to its sermon. What is it teaching me? How is it shaping my life? These are the questions I am asking in the early days of our startup.