Remembered -- On Loss & Acceptance

I reread something I wrote two years ago.  I love rereading my old journal entries and reliving those exact moments -- those moments where I've had an epiphany, where I've cried, where I've laughed and ultimately where I grew.  Those moments.  They're so precious.

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Saturday, April 02, 2011

on loss and acceptance

I have a great fear of loss.  I guess you could argue everyone is afraid of loss.  But most people are afraid accidental, unexpected loss-- like death, or losing your phone or keys.  While I definitely do fear those things as well, the loss that plagues me most on a daily basis is the conscious loss.  Some call it letting go, some call it throwing away, and others call it cleaning.  To me, it is loss. I've always been somewhat of a pack rat.  To be clear, I'm not a hoarder; I'm not living under piles of unused trinkets and newspapers.  I can just be a bit overly sentimental about things of the past.  In my closet I can pick out old pairs of jeans and sweaters-- some dating back to high school-- that I just can't bring myself to throw out.  Some of it is just good fashion sense (everything comes back into fashion some day!), but a lot of it no longer fits and remains purely for sentimental value.  I have a pair of juicy couture jeans (I thought I was so cool) that are now two sizes too big, but were my favorite jeans in Italy.  Looking at them, touching them and smelling them reminds me of all the plates of pasta, all the glasses of wine and all the fits of laughter I had under the warm, glowing Tuscan sun.  I wouldn't be caught dead in them now, but I just can't bring myself to throw them out.  Tossing them aside would feel like tossing 6 of the greatest months of my life away.  My memories, while I know they're in my head, are just so tied to those jeans.  They feel embedded.  Engraved.  Utterly and completely tangled. But all these baggy jeans and shriveling sweaters are really starting to weigh on my closet-- it's quite literally exploding.  It's gotten to the point where the new, beautiful silk shirts and vintage beaded dresses end up crumpled into heaps in front of the closet, instead of hanging comfortably and securely inside.  Yet those old jeans remain perfectly tucked away, protected and maintained in mint condition.  And when that happens-- when the old overtakes the new-- that is when beautiful memories decompose and their true anatomies are exposed.  They're baggage.  And then I look around and I suddenly realize I'm drowning in it.  A sea of baggage. At some point, unless you want to be on an episode of hoarders: buried alive, you've got to learn to let go.  Release.  To do this, to truly let go, you -- albeit a bit counter-intuitive -- you must master the art of acceptance.  When I envision the actions of acceptance and letting go in my head, I see conflicting gestures. Acceptance-- catching or receiving something into my hands.  Letting go -- throwing or dropping something from my hands.  Opposites, no?  But the truth is, the two go hand in hand.  You cannot let go of something until you've held it.  To let go of your past you must accept it for what it is -- the past.  You must accept that the past is no longer real, simply moments of history strung together.  Holding never brings it back, never makes it any more real.  You've got to move on-- allow the past to be the past.  Let it go.  Dump your baggage. And how liberating it is.  Open your hands and empty your closet!  Wave your arms around like you just don't care!  Once you've finally gotten rid of those old jeans, you'll find your hands are free and ready to embrace the new.  And before you know it, you'll find that you have a new favorite pair of jeans that you're dying to start a closetful of new memories around.

Let go

I've been thinking about the idea of perfection a lot recently.  In this day and age, social media allows you -- no, compels you -- to be a voyeur into the perfect lives of "perfect" people.  Thecoveteur brings you into the perfectly curated homes of impossibly fabulous models, actresses and bloggers, whowhatwear takes you on red carpet to mingle with the perfectly styled and perfectly coiffed, and then there's Instagram and Pinterest, just so you know exactly how impeccably the rest of your social circle is living.  It's all a bit much!  It can be downright paralyzing -- instead of getting out there and living your life, you find yourself on your couch lamenting about the way your life should be.

This all came to climax for me personally when I was first applying to business school.  I don't think there was ever a time I felt worse about myself.  I'm already my own worst critic (as oh so many of us are), compound with the realization that every single applicant was absolutely stellar with unbelievable accomplishments -- I felt utterly and completely inadequate.  I hadn't started a clinic in Ghana, or raised $1MM for charity water, or sold my company for $50MM all before the age of 25.  At a time when I was supposed to be touting my own horn, proclaiming my accomplishments and boasting in general, I felt like a failure.

On top of all these feelings of inadequacy, I then had to write an essay about "what I wish I could've done better".  I had to somewhat intelligently and eloquently verbalize my flaws, my blemishes, my missteps.  I don't think I've ever had more trouble writing anything in my life.  My initial reaction was to take something I was actually good at, and turn it into a flaw that was actually good -- a la "I'm too much of a perfectionist" or "I care too much about things".  "This is not a flaw," my brother said when editing my essay. "No, but it is!  You see..." I tried to justify.  I probably went through about 10 rounds of edits on my initial essay, before a friend finally told me to see a psychiatrist b/c I couldn't write about an actual flaw, so I clearly thought I was perfect.

While I knew I wasn't perfect, I knew that I also had to admit that I had a mental block about admitting my own imperfection.  I went through a period of self reflection.  I pretty much cut myself out of the social scene and became a hermit.  It wasn't until I picked up the Steve Jobs book and read the following quote that I found some peace.

"What prepared him for the great success he would have in Act II was not his ouster from Act I at Apple but his brilliant failures in Act II."

Brilliant failures.  I love that.  One of my biggest learnings along my business school application journey has been to let go.  To not try to turn the mistakes and embarrassing moments into positive, but to look at them objectively, recognize them, learn from them and move on.  To embrace failure, conflict and tension -- because its these moments of hardship that birth growth and advancement and perhaps most importantly compassion.  Compassion for others, compassion for friends and family and perhaps equally important, compassion for yourself.

Leaned In

I'm a big supporter of the "Lean In" movement.  Not because I'm going to business school and not because I one day hope to run my own company, but because two and a half years ago at the age of twenty three I made a decision to "lean out".

Anyone who reads that statement and remotely knows me is probably confused.  I am after all by any and all defined measures a successful, driven and ambitious young woman.  I'm a twenty-six-year-old, living in New York City and working at a $50 billion dollar media company.  Aren't I living the dream?

Maybe.  Truth be told, I'm confident I'm living someone's dream, but I don't think that this was ever really my dream.  I'm very grateful to have landed where I am today, when in fact the driving force behind some of my decisions was believing that I had to choose between a career and a life -- that I couldn't have both.

I entered my analyst program in 2008, only to have Lehman Brothers collapse right under my feet.  I was the only new analyst to the firm entering my group, and I was certain that when the imminent layoffs happened I would be the first to go.  And so for the next two years, I worked my ass off everyday to keep my job.  I adopted a first-one-in, last-one-out work ethic and the word "no" entirely left my vocabulary.  In all fairness, I was rewarded for it.  I was ranked top-tier.  In fact, I was one of a handful of analysts in a class of 150+ to be ranked "A+" -- a distinction most analysts didn't even know existed.  But like Sheryl Sandberg and so many other women, I was silent on my accomplishments.  In part because I doubted my own capabilities, crediting my own ranking to luck, and in part because I knew I would never be liked again if I ever shared my success.  And so I never told anyone except my family and my then boyfriend.  (That is until today.)

So, I was excelling and being rewarded from my performance.  Why'd I leave?  After two years in investment banking I discovered that #1 I was pretty good at it, but #2 I couldn't stay in it.  While I could see a blossoming career in the field, I could not see a life there.  I looked around me at the one female VP and one female MD in my group, (2 senior women in group of 75+ people).  The VP was married, but didn't have any children and was still scrapping to move up -- hanging around the office late night and fighting for every project.  Meanwhile, my MD was engaged, but encroaching 40 without any signs of a change in her lifestyle.  No judgement to them, but that was not the lifestyle I wanted for myself in 5-10 years.  And frankly, I doubted myself.  I didn't think I could make it to where they were without sacrificing the rest of my life.  Aside from my then boyfriend, I'd barely seen the rest of my friends in two years.  So I made the conscious decision to leave my potential career in search of something more "lifestyle friendly".

I've now spent the last two and half years in corporate development at a major media company.  I am immensely grateful for my experience and truthfully I don't regret my decision to leave investment banking.  I'm happy with where I am today, and I made the best decision I could for me at the time.  But when I look at my ex-colleagues, mostly males who have stayed in finance and now my make 2x-3x my salary I can't help but wonder, "What if I stayed?  What if?"  Unfortunately, that's a what if that I now have to live with forever because I made a conscious decision to lean out.  I left my career out of fear -- fear that I wouldn't succeed, fear that I'd never be good enough, either at work or at home.  That's a "what if" most men never have to lie awake and think about because they never feel that pressure to choose between life or career.  That's a barrier that I imposed upon myself and a limit I hope I never have to wonder again.

And so I reiterate to people who question the lean in movement or ask why I support it -- it's personal.  I lived it.