Favorite Moments
I'm not exactly sure why, but I woke up thinking of some of my favorite moments. Since I remember little about my childhood, most of the moments are in the last decade but I have a few precious ones from before. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Learning to Read: My sister taught me how to read when I was about 3, I was jealous that she could read the newspaper and I couldn't. So she and I lay on my parents' bed and practiced until I got it right.
2. My Parent's Wedding: My parents got divorced when I was in the third grade. I still remember the day they sat us down and told us they were getting remarried, to each other, about two years later. I had to ditch school to go to the wedding.
3. Getting in to AAG: I spent the summer of sixth grade studying for an entry exam to one of the best schools in Turkey. Three quarters way through the summer I found out that they would only accept one potential student. It was too late to give up so I kept studying even though I knew I had no chance as I was a terrible exam-taker. On the day of the exam, I woke up with a fever of 100-something and I was too tired to freak out. I came in second place and the girl who came in first ended up attending another school.
4. My first kiss: My best friend then. My first boyfriend. Someone I truly love even now. A moment I won't forget.
5. Getting in to CMU: I applied early. I got in through the waiting list in May. Six long months of anticipation, hope, despair. The day I got in my mom greeted me with the telegram and a bouquet of flowers as I left the minibus that took me to school and back.
6. College: Some of my best memories were in college. There are too many to count. All the friends I made. My first job, Boyfriends. Best friends. All-nighters. The list would never end.
7. Corporate World and NYC: I needed a job to be able to stay in the United States. My first real job was the first sign that I might be able to stay here. NYC was the best place to celebrate the beginning of my adult life. NYC was the best place to spend my twenties.
8. Japan: The six months I spent in Tokyo for work taught me everything and more. One of the biggest risks I took as far as being away from every single person I knew and going to a culture and country I knew nothing about and a language I couldn't speak. Now I can.
9.Birth of my nephews: Being at the hospital when my sister delivered the tiny twins. When she said "Am I a mother now?" When they opened their eyes. Seeing them grow have been some of the best moments of my life.
10. Going part-time: Working at a prestigious bank only three days a week was supposed to kill my career. I didn't care. I wanted to volunteer. I wanted to take classes. I wanted to live more. I got to do all of it. Volunteered two days a week, took six classes a semester. All for fun. And my career? Only went north. Started as a programmer, moved to managing a small team and then a global team and ended up as a Vice President. So much for "they" who are supposed to know it all.
11.Getting accepted to Teach For America: The night of my TFA interview, my eight-year boyfriend proposed to me. The next morning, my manager told me that I had made Vice President. These should have been the good omen I needed to know I would get accepted but I wanted to do this so badly that I wouldn't believe it until I saw it on paper. Regardless of how it all ended, TFA was one of the best choices I made in my life and I still feel privileged to have been a part of it.
12. My wedding and honeymoon: Knowing I get to spend the rest of my life with my favorite person on earth. Seeing one of the rare jewels of earth with him. Does it get any better?
13. Leaving NYC: It was time. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. I miss many many things about New York. Walking the streets at all times of day and night. The subway. My favorite bookstore. My good friends. My bagel shop. The opera. SoHo, The cabbies. NYPL. The only place that's felt like home to me so far. But I am ready for a new start. Something different.
14. Traveling across the USA: A big dream of mine for the last ten years. It was better than I could have expected. Swamps of Louisiana, caverns and white sands and mountains of New Mexico, state parks in just about every state west of Missouri, Great Sand Dunes, lots of lava. My first time camping ever. First time driving for more than a half hour. First time in just about 30 states. First time owning a car. First accident. Tons of memories. Tons of pictures. Tons of stories.
15. Starting Fresh: A brand new city. A brand new job. A brand new apartment. A brand new life. Room for new favorite moments.
What are some of your favorite moments?
Bits of Dishonesty
I've been noticing a pattern among people I know. It occurs most commonly between couples who've been together for a long time. But it also happens to longtime friends. Sisters. Brothers. Anyone who claims to be close.
People lie.
Okay, two qualifiers. One, I do understand that people lie all the time and that whomever says otherwise is lying. Two, when I say lie, I mean more that they don't tell the truth. Somewhere along the line in a relationship, we learn what the other person wants to hear and spend a large amount of energy providing those answers instead of the truth.
We make up many excuses not to say what we really mean. We don't want to hurt her feelings. We don't want to annoy him. We don't want to frustrate her. The list goes on and on. In our minds, we are doing a service to the other person. We are preventing an argument. We are preventing a possible altercation. We are sacrificing a future or even an imminent problem by evading the truth. We are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person and they don't even get to find out. Aren't we such angels?
The fact is: we are not. The whole time while we're sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person, on behalf of the relationship, we're secretly building up resentment. We're angry at the other person for not letting us be ourselves. For not letting us tell them how we really feel. We may not even notice it at the time because it's only a tiny trickle of it. It's as small as a seed. But it grows. Each time we say something we don't want to, each time we agree when we don't mean it, each time we don't say what we mean, the seed grows.
Eventually, it gets so big that we don't even give much thought to the truth. We automatically say the answer. We convince ourselves that the other person wouldn't respond to the actual truth. Wouldn't even want to hear it. So we never share it. We don't even give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We just resent them. For who they are. For who they were years ago. For the choices we made.
I don't know why it took me so long to notice this pattern but it's all around me. I see it everywhere. All the time. Each time I've faced the other person and asked them why they won't just say it? Why not face their loved one and tell him to truth? In the name of getting rid of years of resentment. Years of not giving the other person a chance to know the full truth. Every time I asked, I consistently got an enthusiastic no. I couldn't do that. He wouldn't understand. She wouldn't listen. He doesn't want to know. She doesn't care. It would start a fight.
How do we grow to give so little benefit of the doubt to the people we love the most?
Integrity
Somewhere in the last eight months, I appear to have changed, or maybe strengthened is the more correct word, some of my beliefs. Between the quitting. the moving, the traveling, and the starting over, it seems I decided to put a lot of value on a frequently-overlooked trait: integrity.
In the last few months, I have worked hard to be honest and do the right thing. I'm not saying I've succeeded in every instance. I still have over 60 unanswered emails sitting in my inbox from the last few weeks alone. I don't always call friends back when I say I will. I am frequently too lazy to finish a task that I deem important. But I try harder than I ever did. I am adamant about doing my job right and being honest with those around it even if it's not always so convenient. I find myself fervently urging others around me to do the same.
Several people have warned me that this is naive behavior and that I must be not mature enough yet to believe that integrity and success can go hand in hand. The thought that you can't succeed without cheating someone or something is so depressing that I refuse to believe it. How is it possible that working hard to do the right thing and being honest with those around you is considered an immature thought?
Is it really true that you can't reach the top without doing something unethical or illegal along the way? Have we all come to accept that as a way of life? If so, what does that say about humanity and our future?
I want to believe that there are enough people out there who feel as strongly as I do about the power of integrity that they would choose to do business with an honest organization/company over one that cheats its way to the top. But maybe I am just fooling myself. Maybe the world is as bitter and cynical as the people who say I am naive. My belief is that you get what you give. If you give wholeheartedly and honestly, you receive with the same pure force. And I am not so young that I don't realize there are times when people take advantage of you and you kindness, but I still feel strongly that those who are good win bigger and better in the long run.
At least, they can look themselves in the mirror and be proud of who they are.
And if that's childish, well... I hope I never grow up.
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