No excuses

We must act knowing that our work will be imperfect..

-Barack Obama, Inauguration speech 2013

Can Women Have It All?

My experience has been, I haven’t been able to have it all at the same time. And I just try to remind young women that life is long... and we have to just define our own pathways.

The problem we get into is when we think we have to have it all in four years. If I’m going to be a partner in a law firm, for example, I have to do it in this time frame, or else I've lost. Or if I’m going to be a mother, I have to check off these boxes. We create these false goals for ourselves that are not based on what we need but what we think others think we should need, and we need to get off that pendulum.

I think what we fought for are choices, but if we don’t exercise the full breadth of those choices then I  think we’re selling ourselves out.

So my message to women is be open, give yourself a break, stop thinking that there is an answer to the question “can women have it all”, stop trying to answer it, just live your life and figure out what’s in your heart, what do you need and that’s going to change every year, and you've got to be okay with that.

- Michelle Obama, interview with iVillage, 22 Aug 2012 

Woman-in-chief

Far away, on the other side of the world, I've been watching some of the key speeches at the Democratic National Convention in the US. But none stood out more than Michelle Obama's.

This woman is the embodiment of strength and grace, elegance and intelligence. She is the kind of woman every girl should aspire to be - confident, educated, value-oriented.

This last one, I believe, is the most important in what she and Barack Obama are trying to achieve in 2012. In her first DNC speech four years ago and the one this year, there was one central theme - values. There was this emphasis on how possessing these key values determines the kind of person you are and the kind of decisions you will make come crunch-time. And more than anything, that strikes a chord with me. It drives, she said, the ability to make the difficult decisions where there is no margin for error and to stand up and do the right thing, even when it is politically difficult to do so. That is the kind of person people need leading one of the most influential nations in the world.

To be in a fully-informed position, I watched Ann Romney's convention speech as well. And it paled in comparison. There was a story of their lives, but not once was there a discussion of values, of why Mitt Romney is in a position to make those difficult decisions. And that makes all the difference.

Ann Romney tried poorly to highlight a woman's crucial role in society. And she did so at the expense of men, claiming that women work harder and endure more sacrifices than men. Michelle Obama, on the other hand, tells a story of a new kind of feminism. She believes in a woman's independence to make her own choices about her career and body, all the while embracing wholly her role as 'mom-in-chief'. So often I've thought that to be a successful career woman, I would have to be more like man in the workplace. But Michelle Obama, and so many others (Marissa Mayer, to name one), exemplify every day that you can be a mother, a complete woman, and still achieve everything you want to on the career front.

This is the kind of woman who needs to be heard. This is the kind of woman that both men and women around the world should emulate. And this is the kind of woman who needs to be given four more years as partner of the President of the United States of America.

Inspiring SF

In my post on San Fran, I touched upon the inspiration that tends to overflow out of the city. I don’t believe I talked about it enough, however.

This morning, I read a Financial Times article on the story of Instagram and I was reminded of all the people I met in SF, living the ‘start-up’ life, dreaming the dream that one day Facebook or Google or Microsoft will buy them out.

Sure, the risk is high. You can throw a stone in San Francisco and expect to hit someone who is working with a start-up. But that’s what San Francisco is about. It gives you this remarkable sense of hope, this faith that the dots will connect in the future, giving you the courage to “follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path”. That Steve Jobs quote cannot be repeated enough and captures the essence of the SanFran dream.

And the people there do it justice. I met people who left so-called successful careers to come to SF and follow their passion. I met people who rejected the fancy offers from fancy schools to start a mini, self-sufficient farm in their backyard. I met people who work with non-profits that are educating children around the country and giving victims of domestic violence the much-needed helping hand. I met people who can be so openly and normally gay that they are not defined by their sexuality, but by the success of their cafes and their massage studios. And I met the ones who had realized their dream, the 20-something Microsoft-funded millionaires.

The point is that when you do step out of your comfort-zone and have the courage to follow your dreams and do what you absolutely love, you tap into your greatest potential and your strongest characteristics. And that will take you all the way.

Saved Me, San Francisco

The best three months of my entire life. Those words sum up my SF experience to a T. It was an experience like none other in my life, where I dared to step so far out of my comfort zone on so many different fronts.

San Francisco was lesbian flatmates and Peruvian food and lazing in Dolores Park and oh so much wine. It was Diwali dinners with some of the most intelligent people I’ve met, tweeting live on the Piers Morgan show on CNN, working in an American office and learning to talk the American talk. There were adventures to Berkeley to eat famous pizza, barbeques in San Mateo, BART rides to Oakland, wine tours in Napa & Sonoma, food marathons in Sausalito and farmers markets across the Golden Gate bridge. There were weekends that started with happy hour on Friday night and ended hungover on Sunday afternoon. It was discussions on the presidential elections with my flatmates, my best friend’s masala chai, dancing till the break of dawn at Mayes and Matrix and Naan ‘n’ Curry and getting kicked out of the Hilton. It had the most amazing sushi, Thai green curry, empanadas, kati rolls, sea salt caramel ice cream, ceviche, quinoa and roasted organic veggies I have ever had. It was three months spent reinforcing a friendship, falling in love with a cat and a dog, a few blurry drunken experiences, a crazy 25^th Birthday weekend with my best friends from across the continent, Occupy Wall Street, walking endlessly in high heels to find a cab at night and desperate attempts not to stare at the naked people walking on the streets. San Francisco was the most exotic cocktail of random experiences, the very essence of the city everybody falls in love with.

I lived across from the most inspiring place in the world – Dolores Park. Everyday I walked across the park to get to the MUNI stop and it took my breath away every single time. I don’t think people get high by smoking or eating special brownies in this park – the Dolores Park view will suffice. It was my daily reinforcement – to believe in my dreams that got me there and to follow them no matter what.

My favourite and most important SF lessons include some interesting phrases developed by the people I met there: “F*** it, one life” and “There’s no downside to that”. And they are phrases to live by. I made a promise to myself then: to push my limits, step out of my comfort zone and give everything a shot, even when it terrifies me. Especially when it terrifies me.

Leaving this beautiful city, as much as I had hoped I wouldn’t have to, didn’t sadden me. Because I had lived. I had achieved all the things I wanted to do in that phase of my life.

Now I move on to the next phase. I have a few ideas for what it should entail, but whatever happens, I want to make it count. San Francisco set the bar high!

Connecting The Dots

You can't connect the dots looking forward: you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path; and that will make all the difference.

- Steve Jobs, Stanford University Commencement Address 2005

Full text available at: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

To My Scottish Adventure

I don’t think I can start writing about the next chapter of my life without bringing the last one to a close. Last year, after some tiring months of rejections, that blessed email from St Andrews showed up in my inbox, telling me that I had secured a place in their Economics program. It was a time of mixed emotions. Gratitude at being admitted at a great school but mild dejection that it was not the best Economics program in the country nor the most prestigious school. But life handed me lemons and the only thing left to do was make some sweet sweet lemonade.

Scotland educated me, in all the ways one can be educated. At the end of my year with St Andrews, I have walked a hundred steps deeper into the very soul of the subject that gets my adrenalin pumping. There are hundreds more to go, but I have come far.

I discovered the art of cooking, by which I mean the ability to recognize ingredients and put them together to produce an edible output. Here I have taken only fifty steps in a thousand step journey, but it is a feat worthy of some praise. Let me explain why. “Cooking is an uneconomical task. A meal that takes you 15 minutes to eat takes you 60 minutes to put together. I will never cook. I will hire someone to cook for me before I step into the kitchen” was the essence of my take on cooking. The fact that employing a cook was a luxury I could not afford at St Andrews was the nudge I needed. And having a fabulous Canadian flatmate who loved to cook helped. I watched, assisted and experimented. And then there was even a day when I cooked for her!

My education did not stop there. I made one more discovery at St Andrews: the Germans. The Germans are a beautiful race that define punctuality, organization, intelligence and hard work; sometimes a bit rigid, but let’s call that opinionated and sticking to your guns. Some of my best friends at St Andrews are Germans, without whom my St Andrews experience would have be so incomplete.

My year in Scotland was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. From intelligent peers to Scottish pubs, from haggis to the Highlands, from royal weddings to gorgeous views overlooking the sea. It was all there.

A few days ago I made my final St Andrews submission – my 12,000 word masters’ thesis. At this point I had already started the next chapter of my life, so the overlap was a bit unsettling. With this post today I close the lid on my St Andrews box. The final seal will go on it in three months at graduation, but for now, I turn the page to San Francisco. To Dolores Park, to delicious sushi, to Californian wine, to Golden Gate and.. well I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.