Addicted to my personal growth
My name is Bakary and I am addicted to my personal growth and development. My addiction began on April 19th, 2015; a rainy Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, New York. I was going through a period of deep sadness; I found out three months earlier that I needed another year to complete my Electrical Engineering degree. It was supposed to be my final semester at New York University, but my path had been redirected due to poor decisions throughout my time in undergrad. I skipped most classes, was indecisive about my major, and rarely studied. The intensity of my sadness came from many conflicted thoughts and the realization that I had to finally break the news to my mother. I looked at myself as a failure for not being able to graduate within 4 years. I felt selfish and inconsiderate because this meant my mom had to wait another year before she could get financial support from me. Underneath all of these feelings, I was ashamed of the small part of me that was happy to be in school for another year.
So, on that rainy Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, sitting in my room on the steps of a bunk bed, I called my mother to explain why she won’t be making a trip to New York City for my graduation that year. The conversation lasted a total of three minutes and thirty-seven seconds; my mother only said a few things to me that day. We greeted each other before I jumped straight into explaining the situation. She asked, “Are you okay?” I responded, “No” and she said “good for you.” I was not expecting my mother to coddle me, that has never been our relationship but I didn’t know she would be so curt. I truly felt like a huge disappointment at that moment. Before I could respond she told me, “I don’t have answers for you if that's what you’re looking for, but I will say that our experiences make us who we are. I have a customer in the chair right now so I gotta go…Let’s pray on it.” We prayed and she hung up. Sitting there on the bunk bed steps, I never felt more alone.
I slowly stepped down from the bunk bed and walked toward the bathroom. That’s when I saw myself in the mirror hanging on the door. I walked toward the mirror and sat down in front of it. I stared at myself for some time, before thinking about the source of these feelings that made me feel sad. After some deep thinking, it became clear to me that I was sad because I accepted the notion that graduating from university in four years was the norm for everyone and was being very insensitive to myself for not upholding that. Thinking more intentionally, I discovered the roots of what I believed to be my failures as a student was directly tied to the fact that I was pursuing a degree in a discipline that I had no interest in. I chose the electrical engineering discipline simply by googling “Top majors that make money” and spent the first few years of university struggling to find an interest in it. After recognizing this and accepting myself as an imperfect human being, my next steps became clear to me. I was determined to finish what I started with engineering; while rediscovering myself as a person. What do I enjoy? What don’t I enjoy? How do I stay away from accepting the perceptions of the world?
Answering these three questions was huge for me because it allowed me to self-reflect and start a journey of self-discovery. The journey was what I needed to determine the kind of person I am and the person I want to be. In the quest of answering these questions, I discovered that I really enjoy creating a safe space for others to share their thoughts and also love the process creation in the form of art, experiences, and storytelling. I also found that I do not enjoy learning or working on things that I cannot see an immediate impact for. To build confidence and continue to learn more about myself, I removed myself from certain situations that contradicted my new discoveries so that I could focus on applying myself in spaces and activities like photography, dj’ing, and writing which gave me strength and happiness.
These realizations and understanding my feelings made me more passionate about life in general. I suddenly became more motivated because I was learning about myself. Suddenly, I had a sense of excitement thinking about how this experience was going to help me become a better person and would allow me to advise others to avoid my current situation. My sadness began to fade slowly as I started to view this moment as part of an ongoing process of understanding and developing myself in order to fulfill my role of vicegerent on earth which I am still a work in progress towards. Sitting in front of that mirror, I made a commitment to devote myself to my personal growth and development to achieve this goal. I stood up and walked in the restroom to perform Wudu for Asr prayer.
I believe personal development has been a vital part of my growth, maturity, success, and happiness because it has given me solace whenever I make a mistake or go through hardships in my life. I understand now that it’s all part of a journey that will get me to be the person I am meant to be. I am an imperfect human, making mistakes every day as I navigate my life but I learned that focusing on my personal growth and the process of reflection would get me through any experience. I was in a dark place on April 19th, 2015. My acceptance of myself as a work in progress with opportunities for growth was the only thing that gave me hope that day.
