It’s precisely 12 months since I wrote my inaugural post, Your Victory is My Victory, in which I largely celebrated the achievement of women.
The past year has demonstrated to me that improving our lives as women, is a constant bone-crushing, unrelenting, unforgiving and thankless task.
If you don’t believe me, ask Rosie McGowan or Elizabeth Warren.
The latter would have made a formidably better president than the Three Amigos or the Troupe of old men (Biden, Bernie and Trump) that we are stuck with. I won’t sing her praises and prefer to highlight my favourite campaign story, where she calls out Bill Gates for opposing her wealth tax proposal and puts up an online calculator specifically for him.
When you are right, you are right. Unfortunately, for Warren (and women) right does not translate into might or votes.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve been struggling to find anything positive or encouraging to write just because its the 8th March
This post is therefore, about the lessons I am learning in my journey.
Lessons I am learning
Kindness, forgiveness and empathy
I left London precisely 8 years and life has not been plain sailing and in return, I have more empathy for others now, then I did then.
The change has been bought on by the unfailing kindness of my family & friends, who live in distant far-off places like Botswana or are closer to home in Dubai or New Delhi. I used to think that empathy was a sign of weakness (I may be part alpha male) and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I am learning that kind and forgiving people have a strength and fortitude of character that us ordinary mortals do not have. That gives them strength beyond measure and a resolve to finish what they started. It also enables them to unconditionally give to other people.
My unconnected belief
I believe in the work I do. It may overlap with my life’s purpose, but its bigger than that. My “belief” in the value and utility of my goal, supports me at 4 am and when everyone around me questions what I am doing. For someone like me, who is filled with constant self-doubt this has been a God send.
Working as hard as I dare
I used to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work involved and I would/still do procastinate. But the truth is there are no shortcuts. I just have to do the work. It helps to remind myself that I only have a finite amount of energy per day to do X,Y,Z that needs to be efficiently allocated. Therefore, I attempt to work without distraction and with absolute commitment to what I am doing in the moment. My only concern is I sometimes become an arrogant pr*ck about my work and I don’t know how to address that yet…
My time is finite
Finally, I leave you with this thought. The time I spend alone with myself is scared. Occasionally I tell myself that the only person who has to spend the rest of their life with me, is me.
I sleep and I wake up, not alone, but with myself. That is not tragic, but self-awareness. I am, and that is enough (at least some days of the week).
Finally
If you didn’t know, the theme/campaign for 2020’s International Women’s Day is #EachForEqual.
This campaign highlights six key areas:
I won’t reinvent the wheel, you can read more at the WEF forum…
Photo by Chris Czermak from Pexels