Learning the lessons of life’s tests

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One thing I’ve noticed is that my mind feels calmer.

Despite shifting storms, political and personal uncertainty, I feel more balanced. This doesn’t mean life has gotten any easier. But it seems to feel a little bit easier anyway.

If anything, it’s actually been a more testing period. I’ve had to turn down opportunities which would have been unhealthy and toxic for me. I’ve been struggling with sickness and stomach problems as well. Meanwhile, the news cycle has been hitting harder, and I’m genuinely fearing authoritarianism like never before.

The most prime example of tests was a job offer I had. I ended up deciding to pull out of it two days before the start of the contract. As the date approached, more and more things felt off.

I’m glad I followed my gut. I sent an email beforehand querying a lot of issues that were bothering me. Stuff like expecting me to work a full day of work before the contract started, as well as doing a full e-learning training as ‘pre-reading’ (i.e. unpaid work).

Sadly, the response to my email was very disheartening. It became apparent that the organisation did not believe that it needed to follow Belgian labour law. It described the ‘difference in expectation’ as me seeing this as a belgian standard contract (which it was), whereas they say this as a ‘stipend’ for a career.

Of course, such an approach is totally illegal. But certain organisations see themselves above the law. It probably would not surprise you if you live in Brussels that this was one of the ‘go-good’ NGO type organisations. Labour violations are absolutely rife in these places.

What has been heartening though is how much the people in my life have supported my decision. In the past, I would have had more people questioning me. This time, the people around me were quite unanimous that I had made the right call.

I’m in the midst of my deep-dive of Vedic astrology. Apparently one of the big challenges of the last few years has been about a balance of my relationship with work. It even said that 2024 was a year where there was a real risk of burnout, which was actually the case (it definitely would have been nice to know this in advance!).

So in this context, I think the latest job contract debacle was a test. It was to see whether I had really learnt my lesson, or whether I would ignore my intuition. I think I did the right thing, and I hope the universe will recognise that too.

Another example was during a facilitated conversation I had yesterday. We were speaking about the topic of intuition, and I uttered the line that constantly analysing everything in life is ‘no way to live’.

A participant took particular issue with me saying that. She said she was offended, and that I was being judgemental against her. It was a little odd, as it was obviously not directed against her personally.

In the past, I would have felt a lot of stress and awkwardness. Now, I just let things be. I explained that this was based upon my own experience, as in the past this was how I lived, and I was totally miserable. So yes, I didn’t think it was a way to live.

After a while, she announced that she was uncomfortable because I did not apologise. She got up, and left.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but an increase of life tests suggests a greater amount of response. In that way, it shows that things are shifting. Whereas before I felt like nothing was happening, now I am getting more energetic feedback.

In a weird way, I think it’s a show that things are happening for me, even if in the short term it’s unpleasant. Naturally, not all tests are pleasant, nor are they positive either.

But sometimes, I think it’s also the universes way of telling us to keep going.

Keeping faith with the tides of the universe

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Sometimes it’s pretty hard to keep faith in the world.

This weekend, there was a far-right protest of over 100,000 in London. On the same week, we had the shooting of Charlie Kirk in the US too. It’s safe to say we’re in choppy waters right now.

Yet the point in faith is not to hold it only when things are good.

I admit that my belief in the universe has ebbed and flowed. More recently, I’ve gone more inwards, choosing not to think about ‘what it all means’.

I think there is wisdom in this. Many people I see get very caught up in analysing current events. But trying to rationalise the world is like trying to explain time and matter. Our brains cannot comprehend things that are so beyond our reckoning. Sometimes we need to just stop thinking so deeply about things. There’s a life to be lived, after all.

Yet I’ve also found some comfort in connecting with the beyond too. It’s not always about understanding everything, sometimes it’s about understanding enough.

The world seems to move through periods of intensity. Some periods are calmer, some are stormier.

Right now, we seem to be in quite a stormy moment. This is our reality, and probably will be for a while. Sometimes we have to know how to hold tight. The boat navigating through the torment may have to brace through the night to get to the light of day. I think that’s the period we are in right now.

On a personal level, I’ve ended up getting into reading about some of the ancient historic south Asian texts. It’s helpful to see how the world has evolved before us. It puts things in context, and helps us see how periods of hardship and prosperity ebb and flow.

I ended up for one reason or another into looking into a Vedic astrology chart. Understanding what these actually mean can be quite complicated, so I never really could read it in the past. Ironically using the ultra-modern technology of chatGPT I’ve been able to read something that is based upon technology built thousands of years ago.

Apparently I’ve been going through what will probably be the roughest period of my life. It started in later 2022. I was tested in what was doing in my life, as well as what I wanted. These years had a real risk according to the charts of challenging working conditions and burnout.

Broadly, this feels pretty accurate. My last few years have felt very choppy, and lots of things have changed. I did indeed go through a burnout over the last year. I think it was the world’s way of saying things needed to shift in my li.

The good news is that this three year cycle is coming to an end. From November, I’ll enter into a new cycle. Things should start to settle, and life will improve. By 2028, I’ll have several years which will feel like a golden period.

I’ve learnt to be a little cautious around these readings. There was a point a few years ago that I got so caught up in them that I was tracking it month by month. I slowly realised that such micro-reading ends up being quite unhelpful. I lost an ability to live more serendipitously, and I ended up believing that everything had to have some deep meaning. Plus, these astrology charts can get it wrong.

But I have experienced when it has gotten it right too. I remember meeting a man in India in early 2023. He was an astrologist, based in Jaipur and apparently a particularly renowned one. Within a few minutes of meeting me, he told me very directly that I had a high level of intelligence, and that I would write books. In the conversation he said that I should be working in a top institution such as Oxford. Funnily enough, at the time I was working at an Institute in Brussels which was part of the University of Cambridge. There were a bunch of other things he said. A lot of it made plenty of sense, even if some of it didn’t.

When we look for signs in the universe, they are often there. If we completely ignore them, we are doomed to be limited by the capacity of our brains. But if we look too hard for meaning everywhere, we can end up getting surrendering any sense of self-agency. We don’t need the stars to tell us what bread we’re going to buy today.

It’s important that we continue to lead our own lives in the best way we can. Some of us have the fortune to not be caught in the crossfire of world events, whilst others will have their lives cut short due to the evil of others.

In moments of despair, the universe is there to guide us. But we must remember that it is ultimately us who holds our own destiny.

Getting back into the back-to-work vibe

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The summer holidays are over. Brussels is slowly coming back to life after its sleepy summer. We’re coming back into the traditional return to work.

I actually am enjoying a sense of energy in the air. It’s nice to have things happening again in this town. I’ve spent quite a lot of time here in the summer. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but it’s also felt a little empty. Now, there’s a bunch of events around town over the next weeks for me to look forward to.

It seems like a rest has done people some good. many people will feel the heightened political tensions, but this is particularly the case in the political hubs such as Brussels. Disconnection is what keeps us from getting too caught up in work and forgetting to live.

Yet the rest people get these days is relative. In the past, summer meant total disconnection. These days, who can really disconnect for more than a week or two? It’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so without getting caught up about work anyway, not to mention the unfolding of war and politics.

The reality of our working lives has shifted. Gone are the days when we could follow a more traditional boom-and-bust model. Before, it was possible to work hard, long hours but then take extended time off for Christmas and summer to recharge. The modern day schedule is one where the workloads have only increased. Now, it requires a far more sustained approach over all 12 months.

Ironically, some of us face the hardest work during the summer break. We can find ourselves the only person ‘on-call’ in August when something urgent comes in. Suddenly we have to deal with a topic that we have little understanding of, or well above our pay grade. It’s not a fun situation to deal with, particularly if you’ve just come back from your own early-summer holiday.

My aim (or perhaps it is a plea) is for a more sustainable approach to living. It’s been three years since the end of the official COVID pandemic, and we can no longer use it as an excuse for messy working cultures or lack of social interaction.

I feel like people are slowly making this shift. We’re seeing a growth of in-person social events and networking. Community creations are rebuilding their roots after having them ripped up due to the lockdown.

I hosted my local Toastmasters club yesterday, and the energy felt vibrant. After a good number of years of struggling to get numbers, people are increasingly coming out to build real-world connections again.

As for work culture, I can only hope it gets better. Burnout rates are out of control. Perhaps a few years of heavy churn and self-implosion may make some organisations reflect on their practices. But maybe I’m still stuck in wishful thinking.

Yet we always have more power than we realise. Don’t be afraid to fight for your right to a healthy, safe and sustainable working practice. If people are reasonable, they will see that stressed, last minute work (and potential burnout) is to the benefit of no one. And if they’re not reasonable, well, there’s a reason that labour laws exist. Don’t be afraid to enforce your rights if you need to. I certainly have numerous times in my career.

My invitation to you is to set up this new year in a way that is productive, but also sustainable. Manage your workload, your social life, and time for yourself. Don’t wait till the situation is in the red-zone to act.

On being more forthright with your opinions

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When it comes to sharing our own opinions, many of us get in a pickle.

On the one hand, we feel our internal psyche telling us something that needs to be said. Sometimes this might not be particular popular or welcome.

On the other hand, we are wary of becoming like those people who say things to the point of obnoxiousness. I think we all know people who perhaps are a little tooconfident.

So how do we get to the sweet spot of sharing an opinion clearly, especially when it goes against the grain?

The trap with intelligent people is that they are used to being right all the time. It means that they are not used to being wrong, and people are less likely to challenge them as well. It’s why cognitive biases are often even higher for these people than others.

But there are also plenty of intelligent people who end up swinging the other way. The type who are so anxious about having all the facts that they fall into a spiral of crippling dysfunction.

I’ve regularly got myself into a tangle with it. I’ve wanted to share an opinion. But I’ve ended up doing it In a way that lacks conviction. It’s like I’ve wanted to cover my bases. I both want to open people up to a different way of thinking, whilst also not be called obnoxious.

The result is unsatisfactory for all involved. I feel like I haven’t done myself justice, and I’ve also raised suspicion of the group around me. It’s like getting the worst of both worlds.

The nice thing is that things feel different now. People are accepting my opinions more, even though, if anything, they’ve become more disruptive. There’s a difference in terms of my internal clarity that allows people into my internal world much better than the tentative views I’d put out in the past.

A big change for me is that I no longer fear being called obnoxious. In the past, I didn’t want to seem like a know-it-all, so I would temper my opinions. It’s taken some time to realise that pretty much the only people who have labelled me as arrogant or obnoxious are the ones exhibiting that behaviour themselves. Some people think that they know it all, so if I share a different opinion, well, it’s seen as a threat.

I also have the self-assuredness to say this with confidence, even though people could say I’m deflecting criticism. I know I’m not obnoxious. I sometimes have different opinions, and I know how to express them clearly and in detail. That can be dangerous for some people.

I think it helps that I’ve also gotten comfortable that there’s people who are not going to like me. I don’t doubt that there are people who think me writing my blogs is self-indulgent and stuffy. Being comfortable with that gives freedom.

I think the key is to tie in self-assuredness with humility. The magic formula is being comfortable with being 100% sure of something, and also recognising we can still be wrong. The test of humility is to see whether we can admit being wrong without a big hit to the ego. The test of self-assuredness is to not spiral into self-critique or doubt when we get it wrong.

Understanding context also helps. My life experience is pretty different to most people around me, so my points and views are also going to be different. I’m regularly an outlier in pretty much all the spaces that I’m in. If anything, it would be weird if my opinions were the same as the people around me.

So like most things, it boils down to doing the inner work.

When we’re calm and collected, sharing something a bit ‘out there’ becomes a far easier and smoother experience.

Things are difficult right now, it’s not your imagination

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Although I’ve been relatively insular in recent times, I can’t help but feel what is going on in the world.

Things feel tough for people. I’m not really seeing many people truly thriving. It feels like a lot of us are stuck in a broken system.

Perspective is always helpful. I’ve been editing my father’s biography, where he talks about coming to the UK in the 70s. He came as a student, integrated, saw an opportunity, opened a business and eventually thrived.

This came with a lot of hard work. So it’s important to recognise that creating wealth and comfort does not happen out of thin air. But it’s also eye opening how much more access to opportunity there was fifty years ago compared to today.

My father managed to get a loan, attain leaseholding rights and refurbish a building with next to no money. The business was a success, meaning it brought in money to pay off these debts.

In modern times, such a venture would be crazy. The price of renting a physical space is incredibly high, to the point where you just couldn’t get a loan to do this. You would need some sort of financial backing beforehand.

Even if you were able to open something, the amount of competition is absolutely cutthroat. My father was in catering, and there are restaurants everywhere, supplying all sorts of cuisines. Or you can get a ready meal from a supermarket which are also pretty high quality too.

In a lot of ways, social mobility seems to have reduced. Although we now have more access to tools and information, the competition has also increased exponentially.

Perhaps I’m seeing the more extreme side of it, but in Brussels, I’m regularly around people who speak several languages and have a Masters degree, if not two. These are the people that are fighting for an intern position that often is below minimum wage. (Note: if you’re wondering, yes this is illegal. But there is little enforcement, and often the organisations that do this feel that the rules do not apply to them).

From an economic standpoint, I think this is as tough as it’s probably been, outside of the moments of actual tragedy – the war, the famines and the recessions.

I think the increased difficulties have crept up upon us. Silently we seem to have been squeezed through rising food prices, increased rent and ever-increasing demands in our work lives.

There are some explanation. There’s always world politics. We’re in a moment of greater hostility, which inhibits free trade. The effect of US tariffs does have a knock on effect, meanwhile industries such as in China are driving ahead in low-cost goods, making it difficult for a newcomer in many industries.

Although I do think these are real issues, I don’t think they are the root cause.

I am not an economist. I do not understand the inner workings of the world economy. Yet I also have difficulty in finding any economist who seems to understand it either. So here’s my take:

The problem we have in the world right now is how much wealth is being accumulated, but not distributed. In other words, we’re seeing wealth being created, but rather than flowing around our society, they are going into the pockets of crazily-rich people.

Oxfam did a report on this earlier this year. There’s a whole raft of stats, but some headlines are that the richest 1% own 45% of all wealth. Over the last ten years the richest 1% has gained at least $33.9tn in real terms. If the top ten billionaires (Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos etc.) lost 99% of their wealth that they would still be billionaires. Meanwhile, since 1990, working class people’s general income hasn’t really changed. There are still nearly 3.6 billion people living under the World Bank poverty line.

One of the challenges of these numbers is really understanding what they mean. This means the scale of what’s happening is lost on us. I must admit that I also fell in this category: that yes, there are and always have been rich people. But the scale of wealth being accumulated is insane.

Here’s an attempt to illustrate it.

When we say a billion, we mean a thousand million:

$1,000,000,000

When we say a trillion, we mean a thousand billion:

$1,000,000,000,000.

Compare that to an average US salary, around $40,000. A billion is 25,000 times more than this.

The richest man, Elon Musk, will earn several thousand in mere seconds. Calculations may vary, but a site like this can illustrate it: he will earn the average yearly salary of someone in two minutes. In an hour, he will earn over $1 million.

This is what is causing the disparity. It is confusing, because we have more access to information, greater skills, more mobility and better technology than ever before. Yet the benefits of these advancements are not being shared.

To give a practical example, let’s look at the hot topic of AI. I personally believe that AI, with safeguards, can do an incredible amount of good. It makes our lives easier, and advances us as a society.

Yet the practical issue is that whilst we can shorthand this as ‘creating wealth’, the wealth ends up going to the big tech firms. The wealth is overwhelmingly going one way, and the benefits are not being shared.

Meanwhile, there are many people losing work because of the change. It’s crazy to me that computer scientists are losing their jobs. I remember ten years ago everyone talking about how this was a golden industry. Naturally, people losing jobs means that they are losing income, making them poorer.

And so, my issue with such technical advancements aren’t that they are necessarily bad, but that the benefits of these are not being shared. Instead, they are currently a mechanism to increase the wealth of people who really don’t need it.

People are increasingly getting squeezed. We went from a society that only a generation ago could afford to own housing and support a family based upon a single income. Nowadays, you’ll typically see two working adults per household, who are probably still renting. The idea of having a child is probably the biggest financial decision they’ll make.

What is the solution? I don’t know. Well, beyond redistribution of wealth. But the means to get there are more murky.

The key message here is that if you are finding things are feeling increasingly difficult, it’s not your imagination.

It’s okay to feel like it’s tough right now.

A polite reminder to see how far you’ve come

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Yes. Another one of those posts. Ugh.

Whenever I see a post telling us to remember what we’ve achieved, I tend to scoff a little.

It feels a bit cheesy. It is like an invitation for self-congratulation, which feels even more bizarre when it often comes in response to facing a current hardship. Why look back, when the thing that we’re meant to be facing is staring right in front of us?

Yet as is often the case with common wisdoms, there is usually truth behind them. That’s probably why they stand the test of time.

Sometimes looking back is actually very important. When we don’t go back to seeing what we achieve, it’s hard for us to have a sense of momentum or pride upon what we’ve overcome. Without these things, our task becomes even harder.

I’ve been working on my father’s biography for a number of months now. We got to a stage where we have a messy first draft. But we went on a pretty rapid pace, and honestly I was feeling pretty worn out. Since July, I’ve done very little.

The next stage is really my main responsibility. I need to go through it all and re-write the synthesised transcriptions into a readable, flowing format.

I can rewrite a section in about an hour or two, but there’s about forty sections in total. By the end of doing one, I feel like my brain is mush. It’s tiring grueling work. Making the words flow in someone else’s voice is tough.

Don’t get me wrong, it is enriching. I’ve learnt more about my father then I ever would have otherwise. It also is a lesson on how important the early day achievements are. I just rewrote the section where my father first opened an Indian takeaway in the late 1970s. That was the first time he followed through with his own vision of a business, and achieved success. It paved the way for him to set up an empire of restaurants that dominated the scene for the next few decades.

For me, it also helps to remember that this isn’t my first rodeo. This work will by my third book I’ve written. Granted, this is a different challenge as it is relying on the experience of my dad, but the key difficulty is still the same. Namely, keeping motivation and overcoming the tyranny of word count.

But the reminder to look back on my own achievements actually came from a separate source of inspiration. I happened to go through the pictures I had taken over the last couple of years in my phone gallery.

The biggest noticeable difference are in the pictures of myself. The difference is pretty striking. The first obvious change has been my appearance. My style is different, and most notably, the era of facial hair has ended #RIPbeard.

But beyond the aesthetics, I’m in a very different head space, and with a whole lot more mental clarity compared to what I had about 18 months ago.

Ironically, I probably have more interesting pictures of myself from a year ago compared to what I have recently. I was doing more back then, and trying a lot of different spaces.

But that’s also an illustration of how this period was one of really trying to find myself. Nowadays, I’m trying less. I’m slowly returning to a sense of calmness and comfort from within. I’m still changing, but with less of an urgency or feeling that there’s something I’m lacking.

The defining periods of our lives are often the ones where we are most challenged. I went from a life of general stability and success to one where I doubted my existence and whether I would ever be able to function as a human again. The burnout period was rough, and my life will not be the same again.

But as I slowly crawl my way back up, I’m realising that I understand things far better than I ever would had this never happened.

Looking back is not necessarily about celebrating our big achievements or wins. Yes, seeing such moments can be helpful to remind us of what we’ve done. But the more important part is seeing how much we’ve grown . It’s in the things that are beyond what is seen or heard. It is how we now exist.

If you look back and see that you’ve improved as a person, then that is always worth cherishing.

I don’t believe that I should be authentic

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I was at a work party once a number of years ago. We were speaking about ourselves, so cue a moment of self-effacing humour.

I uttered the words ‘I think people like me, until they get to know me’.

Although I’ve left the UK, one thing that will never leave me is my dry British humour. It can be a little funny when this takes people by surprise, particularly now living in the continent.

Yet no joke is funny unless it has some level of truth hidden underneath.

I’ve noticed how much I tone myself down in many social and professional settings. I had gotten so used to being cautious with my words that it just became second nature. The real danger is when you become so used to doing it that you don’t even realise.

But here’s where I’m going to say something that goes against a lot of personal development clichés.

It’s good that I tone myself down.

Toning myself down is what means that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb. It’s how I can manage to fit within the rigid edges of a world that was very much not designed for people like me.

This might fly in the face of what you’ve been told. Right now, the current personal development word after all is ‘authenticity’

‘Be your true authentic self, no matter what people say!’

‘Don’t tone yourself down for no-one girl!’

‘if they can’t handle you at your worst, they don’t deserve you at your best!!’

I describe this as the Instagram therapy speak. The trend of getting advice based upon short snippet videos. You’ll watch a one minute video where a young, white cis woman will give you well-meaning but simplistic advice that will fix the problems in your life. It often boils down to the idea that you need to just be more ‘yourself’ and all your problems will magically disappear.

I don’t meant to sound overly harsh. After all, I do understand why people come to this conclusion. And that’s because for them, it works.

There are many people who have lived in a state of fear of speaking up. They are now increasingly entering spaces where people are actively encouraging them to do so. So when they do so, it is greeted with a level of support and acceptance. The result is a sense of euphoria mixed with growing self-belief.

The problem is that for certain people, this advice can actually be really bad. If a black woman were to ‘speak her truth’, she is far more likely to be labelled angry, aggressive and difficult. This can have all sorts of negative ramifications on her professional career and/or personal life.

Being authentic only works if you’re in a space which welcomes your authentic self. The reality is that many spaces are not like that. And you’re far more likely to be in such a space if you are from the background of the majority of the population. In the west, this is being a white, cis-gendered person.

Which then comes to the next ‘solution’ to this problem.

‘Go find where you’re welcomed and accepted. Don’t waste your time in places you’re not appreciated!’.

Which, again, can be good advice, at least for certain people. Let’s say you’re a white cis woman who is dealing with sexism at work. You can find other spaces which will treat you better. It helps that you’ll find connection and comradery with other cis-white women, which makes up around 30-40% of the population (and even higher in most professional settings).

But if you’re not from this demographic, it becomes far more difficult to find such a space. Worse yet, it can actually compound the problem of marginalisation.

For example, I have certain community groups that I do go to for support. But these spaces are very much underresourced and are filled with burnt out, marginalised folk on low incomes.

World inequalities have the multiplier effect of not only putting additional barriers on you as an individual, but also limiting your community spaces to people who are far less able to support you.

If I were to follow the advice of simply retreating away from spaces where I’m not accepted, I would be effectively ruling myself out of most of the labour market. That’s not exactly a great place to be in.

When we see this at a more macro level, it explains the marginalisation and fracture of society that we have today. Many people are million miles away from pursuing a career because they know they’re not welcomed.

The only real way to deal with these complexities in life is by seeing the world as it really is.

The world is unfair, and I know that I’m more likely to be treated worse because of who I am. I cannot change the cards I have been dealt with life, all I can do is play them to the best of my ability.

So that means that I play my cards far more tactically. I’ve learnt to be strategic, where many others can act freely without worrying.

This is a survival mechanism, and it is why I’ve gotten this far.

Getting back into a life of structure

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I’ll be starting a new role in September. It draws a line under a rather chaotic period in my life.

What started off getting signed off for a week of sick leave in February 2024 turned into an 18 month descent into executive dysfunction and existential crises. It wasn’t all bad, but it was pretty rough.

The more obvious downside of burnout is the descent of being able to do basic tasks. There were periods where I would struggle to get out of bed until the afternoon. I remember one time where a single trip to the supermarket for food wiped me out for the rest of the day.

Over time, these got better. Although I still had lower energy, I had enough to actually do things again.

Honestly, the toughest part was having nothing to do. The emptiness during the day has felt harrowing. People I know are working. Most social activities happen during the evening. So what do I do for the next 8 hours, sitting here, all alone?

It’s a real eye-opener to see how disjointed our way of living has become. Either you must be working, or you have nothing to do. There seems to be little space in between.

The easy answer is simply to say that we should simply just get more people into work.

But time out of the system makes you realise how overly simplistic an answer that really is. Outside of the mad rush, you actually get space to think, and to feel. Time for yourself isn’t some crazy luxury.

It also ignores how many people are marginalised in society. Some have health conditions that prevent them from working. Others have the audacity to care for others, whether the elderly or a new born child. The capitalist system seems to have ignored that these people also exist.

For me, I had pretty much lost hope in getting back into a meaningful job. I now rue the fact that I picked working around politics. I wish someone had told me when I was younger that the rhetoric about equality and that ‘you can be anything you want to be’ was a lie.

The jobs I’ve had thus far have been mired with messy (sometimes illegal) working practices. I’ve also faced my fair share of good old fashioned implicit racism. If only someone had told me that you’re allowed to be a minority, so long as you’re too junior for anyone to notice. I made the mistake of having career ambitions. I then compounded the error by holding on to my beliefs and values.

Sometimes, I wish I worked in something like IT. There, people are used to seeing faces like mine and having to take their advice. Perhaps there I might be able to just go about my job, and have a normal career in peace.

In contrast, I’ve lost a lot of faith in actually making change. Navigating something like the Brussels EU bubble oft means toning down your voice, following the old white guy in the suit’s (oft erroneous) opinion. Throw out all that training that you did to get the role in the first place. Oh, and all that work you did to become a better, more rounded, accountable and responsible person? Best throw that out of the window too – taking ownership often puts a target on your back.

Some people may feel that us minorities make too much about race. But what they don’t understand is that it is our upbringing that shapes us as people. Why is it that I worked in a place that can outcry Russian’s aggression in Ukraine, but at the same time only describes the Palestinian genocide taking place as ‘the situation in the Middle East’? Why am I the only one who seems to notice or care?

Such things only become clearer with the benefit of perspective. I think it’s why we need some level of hardship in our lives (even if I probably got more than my fair share of it). It helps us grow, and reconsider the way we do things.

I plan on using the experience of the last 18 months to grow, rather than to shrink.

I’ve seen more about the world than I ever would have if I simply stayed on the ‘straight and narrow’. And that can only make me a better person.

On dealing with the unfairness of life

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

I woke up a few days ago. But when I got out of bed, I had a shot of pain. Putting weight on my right foot hurt a lot. I could barely step without wincing.

I thought that this might be morning stiffness. Reality had other ideas. Two days later, I’m sitting with an ice pack. I’m currently doing my best to move as little as possible.

What caused this grand injury? I’m not actually really sure.

The night before, I did a dance class and walked around without problem. Before going to bed, I had zero pains.

I must have somehow rolled my ankle while sleeping. I went to a festival last weekend where I walked around a lot, so I suppose my tendons were extra susceptible to injury.

I’m feeling quite bitter about this. I feel like I’ve done nothing to really provoke such an injury.

In the past, I’ve rolled my ankle because I wasn’t paying attention. At least then I had someone or something to blame.

One weird quirk about the human experience is dealing with unfairness. There is an innate sense of justice within us that sparks when something unfair takes place.

I don’t really know what hurt my ankle, but I’ve got little choice but to deal with it. There’s little to do other than heal.

I can try to put a positive spin on it too – this happened when I’m at home, and whilst I may have to cancel a few things, it’s taken place at a relatively convenient time. If this happened a week ago, I’d be stuck in a rented tent, unable to enjoy a festival I travelled 10 hours to get to.

The reality is that there is a duality to unfairness. Looking at it more broadly, I’ve suffered from extra levels of discrimination because of how I sound and look. These are important things for me to recognise and to make peace with. If nothing else, it helps me navigate the realities of my life more effectively.

And yet, there are far more unfair things happening in the world right now. If I were born in Gaza, I would be starving – assuming I was still alive. There is a genocide taking place. The people living there are powerless to do anything about it. This is about as unfair as it gets. Meanwhile, people in places of power would rather ignore these realities, rather than doing what is right.

Some people get so caught up in the unfairness of others that they choose to minimise their own. Because what is happening to them is less intense than the worst atrocities of the world, they feel selfish for ever raising an issue. These folk, whilst well-meaning, are the ones that often get walked over. If you are not able to stand up for yourself, you are allowing other people to take your power. Chances are that these people will end up using such power to cause evermore harm.

Other people choose to see their own experience of unfairnesses as the worst thing in the world. Blinded by their emotions, they fail to see anything outside of their plight as worthy of attention. I’ve worked in many activist spaces, and this is something I often have seen. There is little regard for anything else apart from their cause. Such folk can get so single-minded that they sadly end up emulating the problematic behaviour that they fight so passionately against. It’s why many NGOs I’ve seen end up exploiting their own workforce.

Then some people prefer to ignore that unfairness exists. By simply pretending that the world is perfect, it is far easier to ignore the injustice. It can then absolve us from responsibility, because to us, the system works. It’s easier to say that people who are suffering do so because they somehow deserve it. Such an approach is devoid of reality. It is both inhumane, and it also means living in a delusion. It is impossible to be truly happy if one is ignoring the hard facts of life.

To exist in this word, we need to become comfortable with the fact that unfairness exists. It’s how we deal with it that allows us to flourish.

Doing a diagnostic on our daily anxieties

How often are you feeling anxious during the day?

For me, that number has turned out to be a lot higher than I realised.

I came back to Brussels on Monday after a visit to my parents in London. When I’m with my parents, a lot of my daily responsibilities are put on hold. I’m privileged to have a space where I don’t have to cook or clean.

But I had a slight anxiety attack the moment I came back into Brussels. On the floor, I saw a letter in my name, without any obvious sender. Cue a sense of panic.

I haven’t had a scary letter in years. Yet a mix of scary Belgian administration and general internalised fear of being a migrant has taught me to fear these things.

I’ve heard people describe these thoughts as ‘irrational’. But honestly, I don’t think that’s particularly helpful. Saying that our thoughts are irrational puts the blame on ourselves. The reality is that I have had scary letters before come out of nowhere. When I first registered in Belgian I one day got a scary red tax form, and at the time it was extra confusing with the mix of Brexit and a COVID pandemic.

A few years back, I received a separate threatening letter on the morning of my birthday. I even had to sign to prove I received it. It put a real sour note on that day.

It’s no wonder that my brain associates a mysterious envelope with bad news. So to call these thoughts irrational is only to gaslight myself into believing that my feelings are wrong.

Instead, the solution is to rewire the brain. I haven’t had any mystery angry letters for years, and so I can tell myself that I can slowly let go of the worry. I’m following the procedures as best as I can, and no one can suddenly throw me out onto the street. Once I can process why the emotion is arising, I can see that my anxious reaction is no longer required.

In this instance, this letter was actually nothing scary at all. In fact, I misread the name – it was actually for my neighbour anyway. So no need to worry.

I realised that this anxiety check was worth doing on a whole manner of different things in my life. Basic tasks like tidying up have become an anxiety inducing episode. Having gone through a burnout where small tasks feel tough, I lost a lot of confidence around my ability to deal with the most basic of things around the house.

When I’m feeling particularly down in the dumps, simple things like social occasions or even eating can be stressful. So without realising, I’ve built up a lot of worry that can hit me at any time.

Often the solution is simply to just do the thing. Regular tasks like washing clothes or cooking can become very stressful when we spend too much time worrying about them. So sometimes giving ourselves a little push just to get the thing done is worth it to have the relief afterwards.

Other times, we can give ourselves a break. I’ve been doing some language lessons for a while now. I ended up just giving myself a week break from my dutch class because I was feeling pretty walled in. Evidently, doing this too often can start to have a wider negative effect, but sometimes it’s necessary. That extra week took the pressure off.

And sometimes, we have to reevaluate what we said we were going to do. I signed up for some e-learning courses, including one that would be for the next 8 weeks. I realised that I didn’t actually want to do this enough to justify the additional stress it would bring. So I pulled out. Whilst I don’t advocate flakiness, I’m also learning that blindly doing things that aren’t right for us isn’t a good way to go either.

I think it’s worth regularly doing a diagnostic around the things that are bringing us anxiety in our lives. Particularly when we’re going through a period of stress or wider tension. Sometimes. it’s worth stopping with the grind for a while.

But remember, the key thing not to forget is where the anxiety is really coming from. Many people get trapped in the idea that the anxiety is being caused by some magic force outside of us. It’s not. It’s us. Our brains, and the way we interpret the things happen to us.

Doing the deeper work to rewire our brains is what’s really going to set us free.