If I Knew Then What I Know Now: A Letter to Hareena’s Past Self

Dear, Me (5 years younger)

There are SO many things I could tell you about your future and how things turn out, but everything happens as it should. When things do not go as planned it is critical to learn how to pick yourself back up and learn to go with the flow. No matter what I tell you, from the future, it will not change the events of your life that will lead you to where I am today. You will have smoother transitions in life if you realize the changes that need to be made sooner.

Family, they will always be there, but they are not the ones living your life. Your family will support you in whatever it is that you want to do and your actions will affect them. However, your happiness is most important. You have to live with yourself and if you are not happy about what you have decided, then it is YOU that has to face yourself in the mirror everyday. So, listen to everyone, take their advice, but in the end do what you want to do. Listen to what your heart and mind are saying to you, it will make the difference and you will be more at peace with yourself.

Do not be afraid of change. There will be a point where you will have to leave everything behind; your childhood, your friends, your neighborhood. You will have to learn how to adjust to the change and you will have to learn how to figure things out for yourself. Learn how to break away from the comfort of your normal everyday life, learn to welcome the change and look at it as a new beginning, a new opportunity to learn.  

Figure out what you want to do and DO IT! The sky's the limit and do not let ANYONE tell you, “you can’t.” If you waste your time listening to people who tell you this, you will begin to believe it. You will be stuck with nowhere to go and stray away from your purpose. Essentially, you will be wasting your valuable time. The feeling of being lost will overcome you causing you to lose purpose. The only way you will figure out what you want to do is to try new things! Do not stop yourself from trying new things, that next thing you try, just may be what you were meant to do. Do not settle for less than what you deserve.

A part of living is dying. People will come and go, but it's especially hard to lose someone that is close to you. It is even harder to lose someone that you NEVER got a chance to know. Never miss out on the opportunity to speak to anyone, no matter how close or distant the relationship is. You never know when your conversation will be the last one.

This next piece of advice that I am about to share with you may sound a bit odd, given our history, but try to care less. There will be people that come into your life that you will care too much about, and it will seem as though they do not even care whether or not you are even breathing regularly. Be kind to everyone, and do not show any one any negative feelings.There will be those few people that will be there for you when you need them and those are the people you need to care for. Put the effort in showing them that you care. A Mark Twain quote comes to mind, “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” So, if you care less about the people that do not blink an eye for you, you will have more time to focus on yourself and the people who deserve your attention, you will endure less suffering.

Sincerly,

Hareena (from the future)

My Way is THE Right Way

Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? … NO ONE and EVERYONE! We all have our own opinions and we have our own ways of accomplishing a task. There is no right or wrong way and there is always time to listen and learn to use that knowledge constructively. There are those few people in our lives that insist on being difficult and we wish we could knock some sense into them. These people tend to think they know EVERYTHING and they have a strong will power to be stubborn and always HAVE to be right. These people never even try to meet you half way, even if they let you state your opinion, it’s like talking to a wall. You know they are going to do whatever it is they want to do anyway. Change can be difficult and if we are used to doing things our own way, it is harder to learn to let go of our norm. If we do not succeed, we will draw a wedge between ourselves and the people around us. No matter how young, old, green, or blue we owe it to one another to really listen. We need to take the input from others when we can, so that our perspective on life becomes more complete. If we are too intent on looking through our own lens all the time, we will never see the complete picture. We must listen to others so we can get a glimpse through their lens.  

Whenever I come across people who do not take the time to look through others’ lens, I tend to think of these people as people with “BIG HEADS.” Let me make this clear, they do not physically have big heads. They have big heads in the sense that they think they are too important and too smart to listen to us common folks, their pride gets in the way. They believe that they do not HAVE to listen to what other people have to say. When I find myself in this type of situation I tend to shut down, and I try to limit my interactions with this person because I do not feel they value me or our relationship. They push me away, making me feel unimportant. People like to feel important, the moment they feel any different is when respect walks out of the door. Others will not stick around if they feel they are getting any less than what they deserve. When the BIG HEAD gets in the way, they cannot see beyond their own scope. They can only see the black and white, they do not see all of the shades of grey. If they ever stopped to listen (and I mean REALLY listen) to the people around them, they may gain another perspective. Hopefully they will begin to see the other shades of grey… and maybe even some color.

Everything is evolving, ideas evolve, technologies evolve and people evolve. New “discoveries” are always challenging the status quo and changing how we view the world. With anything that’s “new” people might have difficulty accepting it as a part of their reality. In medieval times when people used to believe that the Earth was flat, the concept of Earth actually taking a spherical form was unbelievable. Many people did not agree nor did they accept this reality. There are even people TODAY that still believe the Earth is flat, don’t take our word for it, go look it up for yourselves!! We all have our beliefs and whenever someone tries to challenge them, we shut down and refuse to listen to the nonsense that others are throwing our way. However, we need to be able to step away from those beliefs, even if it is for a moment, so that we can see something beyond ourselves. When it came to the shape of our world, it was hard for people to see past what they had been taught their entire lives. Whether or not you believe the world is flat is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, what is relevant is if you took the time to educate yourself on the subject matter before shutting down the idea entirely. Today, it is widely accepted that the earth is round and we do not challenge this sentiment, but I am sure that many of you do not know the other side of the argument, or even knew that the other side existed. So, step outside of your bubble, do research and learn as much as you can, if it is one thing that no one can ever take away from you it is your knowledge.

Willingness to listen to others and to change will make for more opportunities to engage with others and broaden your perspectives to add your pool of knowledge. You have your own opinions about the world but being a hard wall to talk to will most definitely bring about unproductive encounters with those around you. I do not like to engage in conversation with someone who doesn’t grasp anything other than what they know. If they are unwilling to open up their mind to the world around them and listen to others, they will lose the opportunity to learn. Whereas if they open up their minds and try to learn new things they will be able to contribute to society in a more functional way. Imagine how much more productive of a society we could be if more people were willing to try new things, think outside the box and actually take risks in order to better their situation. If everyone were WILLING to listen, the possibility of more people working together to find common ground and working on issues that matter would be significantly greater. Sometimes we need to set aside our beliefs of the things we know to understand something we have no idea about. We can’t always know everything and it’s ok to not know everything. We always have room for improvement but it starts with the willingness to take on the attitude that you CAN learn and continue to expand your knowledge.

Be OF this world, not just in it.

Someone Needs to Hear YOU!

When I was younger, no one ever took the time to listen to me. Naturally, I did not place value on myself. I did not feel that what I had to say was important enough to say it, but as time went on I learned how to break out of my shell and I found my voice. I have also learned that one should use their voice to leave a positive mark on the world. As Maya Angelou said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

The first time I remember making a difference in someone’s life was when I was in middle school, and it was actually one of my teachers! At the time I did not realize how this moment would impact the rest of his life. This teacher was in his first year of teaching, and we were a difficult group of kids to work with, and that’s putting it lightly. We used to throw paper across the room and never did the work that was assigned to us. One day after class my teacher was walking around the room picking up all of the trash the students had thrown every which way. I stopped him and asked why he was picking up everyone’s trash and why he did not make everyone else pitch in to clean it up. He proceeded to tell me that we (students) were all “fools” and we cannot even do a simple task such as clean up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being called a fool. So my response to him was, “We are only fools, because teachers like you do not teach us.” After I said those potentially damaging words to my teacher, I left the room.

I did not understand the gravity of my words, I was just being a “sassy” preteen. The next day the teacher came to me before class, and said, “Hareena, you were right,” and from that day forward the class was run very differently. But all that aside, my teacher, someone I am supposed to look up to as a role model, was telling me that I was right. At the time I still did not understand the weight my words brought to this educator, but all these years later I am aware of how I made a difference. I made him rethink his job, his livelihood.

Many years later I have come to learn that I have a voice, I maybe the youngest in my family, but I too have value, I CAN make a difference. When I became a student at UC Berkeley, I kind of “stumbled” into the Leadership Institute. By the time I got to UC Berkeley, I became the stereotypical quiet Indian girl in the corner of the classroom, but through my leadership experience I found my voice. This new voice was not the same voice of the “sassy” preteen, this voice had a little more understanding, but it still lacked value. I always like to hear what others have to say before I speak up, but I still felt that what I had to say was not helpful. By the time I graduated, I realized that if I do not place value on what I have to say then no one else will either.

When I moved back home after college it was hard. I felt that I was losing that voice that I was so proud of. I am always going to be the youngest in my family, and my voice is always going to be belittled, only because I am still seen as the little girl I was many years ago. This was a test for my voice. I realized that I have the right to express my opinions and if no one is listening to ME that is THEIR loss. Writing blog posts for you all is another way I keep my voice, and I wanna hear your voice … down below!!! You know the DRILL!!!

The main take away is this, TALK!!! You do not know what kind of impression you will leave on someone else, so make it a positive one! Back in the Valentine's day post we wrote about a TED talk by Drew Dudley, on leadership. Dudley talks about how we as people are leaders without even knowing it, and we need to let the people around us know that they have made a positive impact on our lives. Dudley calls this point in time the “Lollipop moment,” this is the exact moment in time when the other person made the impact. My teacher back in middle school had this “Lollipop moment” with me. I encourage you … no, no, I challenge you to give someone a “Lollipop moment” within the next week! Good luck and let me know how It goes.

~The Voice be with you, Always!