It’s been a semester since my MBA started and I’m in the second. As always, I’m trying to tie the lessons learned to life and living. But first, I haven’t had the time to really pause until this winter break. My cohort, and I cannot of course speak for all of them, but a good majority of those I do speak to have been feeling the pressure. It’s intense! Brutal, crazy, insane – those have been some of the words we’ve used, not very sparingly.
We wondered – how do they think we can manage all this course work? Who has 5 courses in a semester? And these TA hours and zoom classes on weekends and weekday evenings with Professors, the relentless homework and preparing for midterms and projects. And what about the many other offers to participate in clubs, communities, lectures, networking, projects, coaching – when are we to avail all of those? And what about our lives, granted we signed up for this and knew it was going to be very tight and unforgiving, but we do have day jobs and families and our health, this is ridiculous, we couldn’t possibly drop everything. Lord knows we’re not just twiddling our thumbs – some of these things are on our plate and we cannot drop it or shirk it off. These thoughts make us livid again and we turn our anger towards ‘them’ – what were ‘they’ thinking!!!!?
We went through moments of high stress, anxiety, dread and collectively gasped and heaved huge sighs along the way. Some seemed more put together, others more distraught and often all of it was misread or alarm bells went off in every direction because of a sense of collective impending doom, however imagined it may be. I had my own roller coaster of emotions. Deep down I was terrified at times but also calm and collected at other times. But I realized I was swinging like a pendulum sometimes basing my emotions on what I picked up from others or my own internal demons and naysayers. We got advice across the board from those who went before us telling us what to do, what to expect, what not to do – once again some scary, some reassuring – everyone speaking their own truth.
And that finally was where I needed to pause. ‘Own truth’. What really was my truth? If I was being honest with myself and I wonder, why I’m not sometimes – I am not always as terrified nor am I always very re-assured. But I am also not always listening to my truth.
And so, I pontificate, and it leads me to this. My big why, my purpose, this program and it all comes together to reveal some wonderful realizations and my truths, the ones that support me, the ones I should enable. I don’t think anyone is out to get us or make us feel miserable. ‘They’ are not designing this in a way to see us suffer and use brute force to hopefully make some diamonds under that pressure. No. At least that is not what I want to choose to think. I’d like to believe there’s a much higher purpose to all of this. The biggest lesson by far is that this MBA much like life is something I get to do, and I choose to do. And as part of this choice, I must make other choices. There are many things that come your way – shiny new objects and dungeons and dragons – yes, I went there – that we must deal with. And no, there’s no Gollum ‘precious-dynamic’ being created here as a big social experiment with us as guinea pigs. What we must learn here and is of extreme value is that Life/time much like this MBA will keep happening and moving on and we must learn to make the most of it.
To crystallize what I’m trying to articulate here’s another analogy – ‘Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers puts it the best – ‘you got to know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run’ – choices. The way I’m living my every day is the way I’m living my life. And I am choosing to do this. I want to enjoy it. And some days I want to spend time with my kids, some other day I must work the extra hours and a few times it’s burning the midnight oil to study or taking a walk. But I can choose, and I can choose from a place of calm and knowing that all of this is a privilege and there’s a give and take in life. That the biggest lesson I’m learning here and it’s one that is the hardest to master – my time and priorities. There is no doing it all. I’ve said this before. What is ‘all’ even?
And if I can hone into that and not feel crucified or guilty or anxious then I can enjoy this. If I can learn to better crack this code now and practice it for these 2 years – because there’s no way this anxiety and stress will do me any good over two years – if I can learn how to do this MBA to best support, my goals and enjoy it then I would have got way more than my money’s worth. It has always been about the journey right. Not the grades at the end of the day or the destination. Not even doing every little thing they are offering. Life offers us so much and we can let it overwhelm us if we’re not careful. If I can hold on to this little nugget of wisdom and remember every day to get up with a smile in my heart that I get to do this – all of this, MBA, my life, my family – I’d have mastered the hardest lesson of all. I’m grateful for the courses, the learning, the friends, the network, the experiences, the potential, the opportunities, and this journey but the crux of it is learning how to choose – to let go of some, to enjoy some and to be at peace with it all – that’s what this MBA is about for me.
It’s also quite fascinating how some of us forget this, much like real life, we get lost and caught up in the mechanics of it and lose sight of the big picture. We all have to be to some degree – type A’s – taking on this additional responsibility, no one is forcing us to do this – willingly sacrificing our time, energy and money towards our pursuits – so there’s that sense of wanting to do it all and not dropping anything and I truly believe that’s the gist of this experience – really understanding how to shift, what to let go of and what to pick up – our energies, our time aligning with our values and priorities. We’re learning to really use our stick shift, accelerator, break and steering wheel to become good drivers. And there’s no dearth of analogies here but I think I’ve more than beaten my point to death – we’re learning how to live our life efficiently – like an executive must; get the maximum joy and experience with the resources we have. We all know this, I’m always preaching to the choir, which I’m very much a part of. The trick is to remember it.
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