We all want to belong. Even the most reclusive, Grinch-like people we know deep down desire it.
The modern day message is that when we do not belong, we should simply move on. The magical land of belonging is just beyond the hill, over the rainbow.
Yet what if searching for such sense of belonging is just but a fool’s dream?
Next week, I’m releasing my second book, Become Your Best Self: Insights for finding meaning in the modern world. The book is a compilation of my writing here.
If you’ve been reading my articles over the last four years, I would love for you to consider buying my book – either for yourself or as a Christmas gift.
I have been freely giving my labour for thousands of hours. I am very unlikely to make substantial money in any case, but it will at least help support me as I continue on my path of learning. This way, I can ensure I can continue providing more value in the years to come.
Yesterday I had the authentic German experience.
I woke up after an overnight coach in Hamburg. I had a few hours to kill before the train arrived.
Well, it turns out I had longer than that. My train was delayed. At the beginning it said by 30 minutes. No big deal I thought. Until it got delayed again, by 20 minutes. And again. Eventually it came 80 minutes later.
The experience was a testing one for my level of zen.
I don’t doubt you do a lot of different things in your life. But have you ever stopped to ask why you’re doing them?
Whilst it may sound obvious, if we’re not clear about what we want, the chances of us getting it are nigh on impossible. We can easily end up meandering through life. We get ourselves into activities, relationships and jobs without really knowing why we ended up there.
But to have a truly meaningful life, it’s so vital to get really intentional about what the ‘why’.
I’ve known for a long time that I’m different.
Growing up in the UK from a Bangladeshi background, I was one of the few non-white faces within school.
But it was only until I got to my first office job that I first realised that my differences would provoke additional challenges. Before that, I naively thought that the workplace was a space that was genuinely open, and driven towards the most effective way of working.
With my recent autism diagnosis, I feel like I’m having this experience all over again
My recent weeks have been plagued with fatigue. It got to the point where popping out to the supermarket a few minutes down the road would leave me struggling, and I found myself frequently needing naps during the day.
I’m in the midst of understanding what being neurodivergent means in practice. It’s a lot to navigate – there’s certainly many things that make a lot more sense now, but I’m also cautious to jump to conclusions too quickly.
I went to my doctor this week who recommended I tried antidepressants. In an ideal world, I would have had a bit more time than a short consultation to think about it. In the end I decided to give them a try.
This week is Neurodiversity Celebration week.
When I reflect on it, it was the heightened amount of messaging on social media that made me start researching around my own neurodivergency. This has culminated in me believing I’m Autistic.
So if you wanted an example of why these diversity weeks can be important, here’s a living, breathing example for you.
I’ve regularly had conversations where I’ve noticed I was different.
It’s been hard to put words to this, and whenever I’ve talked about being different to other people they have always tried to reassure me – we are all different in some way, right?
I never thought of myself as demonstrating signs of autism. My understanding was that autism were for those with very exaggerated traits. Even when I saw some resonance with certain common behaviours, I thought of autistic people as showing little regard to emotion, whereas I knew myself as highly emotional and sensitive.
Yet I read an article which highlighted that many traits of autism vary a lot – non-stereotypical autism shows up as being highly empathetic and sensitive, as well as being existential or spiritual beings. These signs of non-stereotypical behaviours are more common for women, ethnic minority and queer/gender non-confirming folk too.
So am I Autistic? Most probably.
This week was a European tour for me. I started in Brussels, then went up to Amsterdam to speak at the Sustainable Packaging Summit. on Wednesday I came straight to London (with a small box of chocolates for my dad’s birthday) to speak with a group of Spanish cleantech startups. I’m now going back to Brussels this Sunday (and speaking at another event on Monday there!)
I’ve been posting quite a lot recently about the importance of getting out of our comfort zones if we want to get wider perspectives. This week was me putting this into action
This week I attended a coaching immersion down in Kent, UK. I was one of 12 in an awe-inspiring group of people doing incredible things in the world.
Whilst the experience was powerful, one thing we discussed is how gaining insights in of itself does not actually do really do anything unless we act upon them. (Actually, it was put in less eloquent terms: ‘f*** insights’).
It’s why during the immersion I committed to creating the Make Diversity Matter to You Programme. It’s a month long experience starting in July consisting of four 90 min weekly webinars and a community group with peer learning activities and resources.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the programme, drop me a message.