I’m someone who has a slight obsession with milestones, always using them as a welcome excuse to travel down memory lane and envision a better future. If that sounds narcissistic, I must add I get equally excited for milestones in the lives of friends and family too. Birthdays, graduations, housewarmings, baby showers (more recently!) all make me happy and excited even if I’m going through a tough time in life myself.

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This summer marks five years since my college graduation. I’ve been trying to think back to my answers to, “where do you see yourself in five years?” type questions in the countless job interviews I went to in college. I don’t think I quite described my current life in any of those methodical, rehearsed answers. So, I thought why not sit myself with a cup of coffee and look back to where I was in life around my undergrad graduation, how life unfolded after my college bubble burst, and where I want to go now.

Looking back

With my education in Pakistan’s local, not British A/O level systems, undergrad at Mount Holyoke felt like a car crash. It took me a good while to find my voice amongst peers who came from financially and academically privileged backgrounds. Imposter syndrome hit hard everyday as I played catch up with my classmates on academics and extracurricular activities while trying to work three jobs to sustain myself financially and maintaining a long distance relationship.

Four years of pure grit, I graduated with double majors and multiple honors. I also graduated with the burden of tens of thousands in student loans, a strong identity crisis, and a relationship I was a hundred percent invested in but my family vehemently disapproved of. 

But if anything, my time living by myself in America, first for a year in high school and then college, had made me unflinchingly resilient. I was confident that no matter what I could take on any curveballs life threw at me and curveballs life did throw at me!

• I didn’t get the job I wanted. Senior year, I diligently prepared for and interviewed with consulting firms because I was set on starting a career as a strategy consultant after graduation. McKinsey was my dream firm and I made it all the way to their final round and then tanked it. 
• Instead of McKinsey, I started at a boutique strategy consulting firm in NYC. While I absolutely loved my work and the NYC life, I was compelled to consider career options outside of America as well because of the uncertainty of H1B visas and lottery chaos that I would’ve had to face after my one year of CPT (details here) was over. I moved to the Netherlands.
• I got married six months after graduation. Marriage was truly never in the plan. I didn’t believe in it as an institution (still don’t), but I also realized that I had to pick my (cultural) battles. This was one I decided not to fight with my family. When they, after nearly a year of arguments, came around to accept my choice of Noor as a life partner, I came around to their wish that we get married. 
• I had forgotten the effort it takes starting from scratch in a new country. With a lack of fluency in Dutch, no friends or community to call my own, and deep nostalgia for my life back in NYC, I struggled to settle in the Netherlands. Job rejections from all strategy consulting firms was also disheartening. Fluency in Dutch was their hard requirement; and I especially couldn’t find my way around it without a professional network.
• Working through an identity crisis wasn’t a post-graduation plan, but it was a longtime coming. As Oliver Wendall Holmes rightfully said, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Moving thousands of miles away from my conservative, Pakistani Muslim family to America at only 16 years of age gave me the exposure and opportunity to carve my own path and define my own personal values independent of my family’s. Inevitably, this caused an internal conflict that I brushed under the carpet for a long time. Moving to the Netherlands and not immediately having a full time job to consume my time put me face to face with this identity conflict and it wasn’t pretty.
• A stream of health issues followed me into my life in the Netherlands. Within my first year moving, I had two surgeries. They were minor but exhausting. I also caught a rare, nasty virus that took half a year to clear up and consumed so much time and peace of mind because it was contagious and I had to be careful and calculated about every move. Lastly, I was clinically diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

I write about some of these “curveballs” because firstly perfect lives are an illusion. No matter how glossy our insta feeds look, we all have our everyday battles to fight. I also write about these challenges because I’ve a tendency to overlook my own struggles and achievements. I want to remember and recognize the difficult times I overcame to be where I’m today, if only to be more grateful for what I’ve. 

What have I done + learned in the last five years?

• I built a professional network that helped me find a strong place in the financial services industry. As an MBTI INFJ, this was a bit of an effort. But I pushed myself to regularly attend networking events and arrange one to one coffees to get myself known. A lot of opportunities came my way because I overcame my fear of failure and put myself out there consistently. I learned that perseverance is key; it’s not necessary that you’ll strike a connection at your first networking event or coffee. I had to keep putting in calculated time and effort to eventually reap the fruit. It’s been a year since I found my feet in big four consulting. I decided not to pursue strategy and instead came to love regulatory change and implementation work, which I wouldn’t trade for anything else right now. I’ve done an interview here if you’re interested in the other jobs I did prior to consulting.
• I’ve also come to understand the meaning of a true lifetime partnership. Noor and I had already been close friends for five years when we started dating in 2013. By the time we decided to start our lives together, we had survived a lot including distance, family disapprovals, and internal turmoils of our own. Nobody could say that the feelings we had for each other weren’t solid. Turning our relationship into a lifetime partnership, though, meant it was time to prove those feelings for each other everyday. It’s not easy loving someone with all their flaws and finding (and re-inventing as you go) shared purpose and values alongside your individual ones. But it’s incredibly rewarding when you’ve the right partner by your side. 
• I’ve put myself on a path to building a healthy relationship with money. I grew up in a middle class family and, as the firstborn to my parents, saw their financial struggles firsthand. Somewhere along the way, I had internalized a limited mindset towards money which made me save or spend in extremes without intention. By educating myself on healthy financial habits, I paid off my undergrad student loans and invested in our little hundred square metres apartment in Amsterdam. Not even in my wildest dreams I thought this was possible within five years of graduating college!
• I went to therapy and worked on my mental health. The self reflection and awareness that my therapy sessions led to have been instrumental in many breakthroughs in life. More than ever, I understand my genetic tendency to fall into depression and the everyday triggers that cause me anxiety. I also recognize that as a true MBTI INJF, I’m susceptible to pushing myself too much in everything I pursue. So it’s been refreshing and so useful learning when to take a break, reevaluate, and step away from both relationships and environments that are toxic for my mental health.
• I also finally addressed my internal identity crisis. I would say this one is a work in progress but I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I’ve stopped seeking validation for my personal values and choices from anyone, especially my family. I also have stopped taking responsibility for anyone’s disappointment in me; their values aren’t for me to live or uphold. I also now understand that just because my values have diverged from the values popularly considered Pakistani doesn’t make me any less Pakistani. You may say hello to a happy agnostic, liberal feminist, vegetarian Pakistani woman!
• Vegetarian Pakistani, what?! When I reflected on the values I wanted to live by, being good to the environment and its inhabitants emerged as a strong one. I already ate much less meat due to the environmental impact of the meat industry and then for its ethical implications, but early this year, I went full vegetarian. Even though I terribly miss some of my meaty comfort foods, I wish I had taken the leap into vegetarianism sooner because it seems to have lifted a heavy weight off my chest. 
• When you’re not born into wealth, materialism may seem like an entry ticket to eternal happiness but thankfully I quickly realized that while materialism might give a temporary high, it isn’t an entryway to long term happiness. This is perhaps one of my most valued realizations of the past few years because it led to a mindset shift that has enabled me to shed any predefined ideas of success I picked up living in a largely unequal and capitalist society. I still don’t quite have a personal definition of success nailed down, but I know for a fact that for me success doesn’t lie in materialism and that’s a truly liberating feeling.
• Quality over quantity in relationships is another lesson I wish I had learned earlier. All throughout school and college, I found myself overwhelmed trying to keep up too many friendships, extracurriculars, and whatnot. At face value, I come across extroverted, but I’m an introvert at heart and that’s likely why trying to keep up with a large group of friends exhausted me. Understanding that I’m my happiest self with fewer but more meaningful friendships and at more intimate instead of large gatherings has allowed me to prioritize relationships that truly bring me joy. It has also helped me draw boundaries and not share more of myself with people who I no longer feel connected with or who were never truly my friends to start with. 
• An investment in yourself yields the largest, most long term returns. I’ve strong people-pleasing tendencies. Naturally, if left unchecked, I spend my time and energy on making others comfortable. But as they say on flights, “first put your own oxygen mask on then help others.” I’ve started accounting my time and energy for my own goals first. I’ve invested in learning intermediate Dutch, created this blog to fuel my creative side, consumed books and podcasts for personal growth, made time for meal-prep and exercise, and studied for and completed a year-long professional diploma in addition to other investments in myself. All of which have led to small and big returns for my career, mental health, relationships, and overall well-being. 

Where am I going here on?

I’m almost certain that no matter how much I plan, the next five or ten years will unfold with surprises too. But, I do have a little priority list to work through in the coming years. 

• I’ve been toying with the idea of going to grad school, but I’m not sure for what exactly and how going back to school will add value to my life and career.
• I want to support my parents in all ways possible. They provided me with the best education and upbringing they could and now that I’m stable in life, I can’t think of a better way to “pay them back” then by being there for them emotionally, financially and, hopefully once normal air travel resumes, physically too. 
• I hope to grow my knowledge and skills. Personal growth satisfies me to my core, so I want to prioritize it and, hopefully along the way, break glass ceilings in the next few years of my career. 
• I want to reconcile my ‘troubled Pakistani’ identity with my ‘international student in America’ and ‘first generation immigrant to the Netherlands’ identities. Because they are all so complex and different from each other, I feel like I’ve no home or that I belong nowhere. But as someone who craves connection, I want to transform this unsettling feeling into something that will be grounding for me in the future.
• I want to learn to invest and build wealth (with Noor). It feels so strange writing this down, but I feel if not now then when? One of my most intelligent financial decisions was investing in property. In just a year, we’ve seen the value of our investment increase significantly. Now, I want to learn other forms of investing. Stocks, I’m looking at you.
• With my family in Pakistan and Noor’s in America, our vacation time is usually spent visiting them. I want to find a way so we can also use some of our vacation time to travel more of the world together. Ironically, it was a backpacking trip together in Europe that brought us close and now we hardly find time for that kind of fulfilling traveling .
• I hope to reach a place where my health and well-being are my first priority. I’d be lying if I said that’s the case right now, but I’m working on it.
• While we love our life in the Netherlands, I want to remain open to the idea of relocating elsewhere either for studies or for work. This one gets me very excited!
• I hope to continue nurturing my few but deep and meaningful friendships. These are the people who’ve seen me through my worst and continue to give me their love. 
• I want to separate my real life from social media. Having my insta complementary to this blog, sometimes it begins to feel essential to mirror parts of my lived reality on the gram, so that their existence and occurrence can be validated. I don’t want to let myself fall into that trap if I want to let myself continue blogging happily. 

I’ll never be able to capture the essence of the last five years or my vision for the next five years in words. So as much as I can write away longer, I think it’s time to end this post.

On my high school graduation, per tradition, my juniors bestowed me titles. One I received was, “she mounts the storm and walks upon the wind.” The last few years I’ve tried to do just this, and will continue to do so in the future as well.

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