I never imagined that I would live 3,000 miles away from home. 3,000 miles away from my comfort zone and my family. But I do.
I feel like I have been moving around my whole life. My childhood was spent moving countries from India to Oman to the US. And even in the US the first six months were spent moving around Texas, NY, and NJ before finally settling down in central NJ for seven years. Then the relocation bug bit me again and I was on the road yet again.
I moved to NYC for undergrad and work. While in undergrad I moved across the pond for a semester to London. After a brief stint back in NJ, I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan for business school. During my summer internship, I huffed, puffed, and cried my way through Columbus, Ohio. After an amazing two years in the one of the smartest cities in America, I packed my barely driven Honda Civic and made my way to Atlanta, GA. Twenty-one difficult months later I was hopping on a plane to fly second best coast in the US, the West Coast. As I write this blog post my current GPS coordinates will point to the Bay Area.
I don’t know how long the blue Google Maps dot will be pointing to my current location, but if history has taught me anything, discovering new places or maybe even returning home is probably in my cards
Moving around from country to country, state to state, even one apartment building to another has taught me quite a bit. I recently came across an article on Thrive Global that recollected the author’s experience of moving out of her comfort zone and the lessons she learned about herself. This article inspired me to reflect on my most recent moves and the lessons I learned about myself and life through each of these experiences.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
I arrived in Ann Arbor with an extremely warm North Face coat (not jacket!), few boxes of belongings and high expectations about business school and landing a top job in Marketing, and a sense of superiority from working for top Fortune 500 companies in NYC and getting into a top business school.
I left Ann Arbor not only with great friendships, really cool travel and school experiences, a good paying job but also feelings of inadequacy, failure, and disappointment. I learned two important lessons in life,
- Life does not always go the way you want it to and YOU HAVE TO LEARN TO DEAL WITH IT
- You have to learn to drown out all external voices and find your own voice. AND LISTEN TO IT.
While applying to business school all your attention is focused on YOU. Your GMAT/GRE scores. Your business school applications. Your prior work experiences. You forgot that there are seven billion people living in this world. Business school quickly reminds you of that. Or at least 350 others who are equally if not more smart, intelligent, driven, hardworking and who want to “Shine bright like a diamond. Shine bright like a diamond. Shining bright like a diamond. We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky.”
With competition and talent at an all time high in school, inevitably someone has to come in 2nd or 25th or 100th or 350th. And that someone was me. The details are not important but what is important is that how I imagined my life to play out during school did not quite materialize that way. I did not end up at the job I thought I would or live in a city that I thought I would or quite frankly get the status or the benefits that I thought I would. And this was a bitter pill to swallow. But one that looking back I think I needed in order to learn this lesson and learn how to deal with a disappointing outcome.
Business school is filled with so many choices and opinions but the only one that matters is yours. But listening to your own voice takes strength and self-awareness. These skills take time to develop but there’s not better place to practice than when you’re surrounded by those who are not hesitant to voice them. I thought I my voice was loud and clear but inevitably it got lost amongst the sea of others and this left me confused and seeking out opportunities and experiences that were not aligned to what I really wanted. Needless to say, listening to your voice and having that voice rise above others is a skills I’m continuing to develop.
Columbus, Ohio
My stint in Columbus was only for three months during my summer internship but those were three intense months. I survived (not thrived) during my internship mostly because I knew the sun would rise and set each day bringing me closer to August. My time in Columbus was not a happy one but I did learn some valuable lessons.
- I like living in diverse towns where people are moving to. The midwest (minus Ann Arbor) is not for me.
- Crying while needed to get your emotions out doesn’t solve anything.
Columbus is a thriving town with a decent downtown and a young population with Ohio State University (GO BLUE!!!) and several companies based in the area. However, its not a town for transplants. Most people have grown up in the area or move back because they have family there. This makes it harder to meet people who are also looking to make new friends. As a result of fewer transplants and being a Midwestern town, the diversity was low. I realized that I took seeing people of all color and economic status for granted growing up in NJ and especially NYC. I realized that diversity was an important factor for me. I need to live in a community where there’s diversity in terms of race, ethnicity but also in terms of ideas and experiences.
The secret is out. I spent a good chunk of my internship crying, either to myself or my friend because I was miserable. I realize this was not very healthy and it was pretty clear at my internship that I disliked the location. My emotions paralyzed me and prevented me from taking any meaningful action. So its okay to cry but don’t let those tears run amok.
On a positive note, during the summer I drove on the highway for the first time and even interstate (Ohio to Michigan). This was a real big deal. Real big deal.
Atlanta, Georgia
I’m not quite how to describe my experience in Atlanta. While I was pretty miserable there given that I was unhappy at my job, didn’t have any friends and felt like I was physically present but mentally checked out, looking back this experience has taught me the most about myself and making myself happy.
- You have to be a joiner. Join a gym or a recreational sports league or a meet up group.
- Being busy for the sake of being busy doesn’t lead to growth. All you’re doing is putting a band aid on the pain and not dealing with the pain at all.
- It’s okay to ask for help.
Working out is the one thing that I love doing. Yes you read that right, I love going to the gym. Once I figure out my routine, I rarely forgo a workout. I was lucky enough to have a gym at work and one that offered classes. I looked forward to my classes because they made me feel strong and gave me positive energy that made all the difference in having a good day. I also joined a Tennis league. I used to play Tennis as a kid – not competitively or anything but I enjoyed playing for fun with my dad. With Atlanta being a huge Tennis community I was able to join a team and and played two double seasons.
The second lesson I learned is that keeping busy with tasks doesn’t lead to addressing real problems. After I first moved to Atlanta I used to keep busy by cleaning my apartment, wandering around town looking for home decor items, doing laundry. All essential tasks but not ones addressed my loneliness or resulted in challenging myself to seek worthwhile experiences. Once this was spelled out for, I pushed myself to start working on my blog and making friends by joining a Meet Up group, which also required me to take the initiative and make the effort.
Soon I was busy spending time with my new friends, meeting my philosophy group (one of the best things I’ve been a part of), improving my Tennis game. I put myself in uncomfortable situations and this led to real growth.
Learning all these lessons led me to learn a gigantic one. It’s okay to ask for help. Life can become overwhelming especially when you have so many changes going on and asking for help is a sign of strength not weakness. Taking this step led me to embracing meditation, which has been a positive force in my life.
Learning these lessons was and still is very challenging. It takes significant effort to implement these strategies but with time and more practice, the execution becomes easier.
I’ve already started to implement these lessons after my move to the West Coast but I won’t lie — having a husband vs moving by yourself makes it so much easier. So the biggest lesson in all…. find a partner. Just kidding. All YOU need is YOU!