Uncharted Waters: Navigating Life As A Change-Agent

To be ‘The First’, a pioneer, is often a noble title. It speaks towards your confidence and determination to break barriers. It marks the moment in history when a glass ceiling is shattered, when the culmination of generations of effort arrives at a single defining point in time to say “We too, lay our claim on destiny.”

As first-generation college graduates, STEM professionals, career builders, home-owners, business owners, and more, there is always fanfare at certain high points in your achievement. These moments could be graduations, a home purchase, wedding, new job or promotion, award, business milestone, and more.
The crowd cheers, the likes and comments on social media are ablaze with “Congrats!” and “I always knew you could do it!” messages. The applause is always loud when the “big win” moments arrive.

But what of the moments in between? The work that got you there rarely gets such acclaim. Even more so, the work that keeps you there gets even less. While it is easy to exist in those highs, how do we navigate the moments before and after the confetti drops as we enter a space we have never known before?

I reflect on my graduation from high school as salutatorian of our class. As we tossed our graduation caps in the air you could freeze frame the movie on that moment before rolling the credits. The mission was complete: 4-year college acceptance letter secured, “beating the odds” of growing up in the Bronx, and going on to greener pastures.

And yet the movie credits did not roll. The black and white montage of “he went on to ____, and she went on to ____” did not play over a 90s motivational song. The story continued. Life began in college, except this time, there was no reference point of what “next” looked like. I was now in uncharted waters, navigating a space my parents could not provide formal guidance on.

I, like many others, entered a space unfamiliar to my story to date, and very different from the environments I grew up in.

The culture, expectations, and personalities I was experiencing were far removed from what I had known prior, and, as many others experience as first-generation college students, I was a fish out of water. This mental clash is often harsh, and many dealing with this are often left feeling like they are alone in this experience and, even worse, must bear the weight of it alone. After all, they are the great hope of their family, the shining star, the “one who made it.”
How could they explain to anyone who sees them in this light that they are actually struggling? How could they explain to their family, friends, or loved ones that their supposed superstar is often left feeling defeated, out of place, and worn out?

During my time in college, I had several high and low moments. One issue that was prevalent during many of these low points was the feeling that I had to stand alone in most of these struggles. I was reluctant to reach out for support from family, friends, and loved ones. I was convinced that I had to figure it out, and to receive help would suggest that I have failed in my effort.

Ironically, I was always quick to offer such support to those around me, adding even more to my plate that I was already overwhelmed with at certain points. I was quick to say “yes” to helping others, yet just as quick to say ‘no’ to helping myself.

This was of course, nothing short of foolish. We must let go of the notion that we must chart the new territories in our lives alone. When you try to stubbornly go at it alone, it is often in an attempt to validate your previous, present, or future accolades. As such, you place more focus on keeping up appearances than on bringing forth your best effort towards success. By worrying about maintaining any image of yourself as “the winner”, you actually move ever closer to a loss.

Your greatest successes will come from leaning into your support network, not pulling away. You will often find that many of your highest highs came with contributions from your tribe: a coach, mentor, friend, parent, partner, or even competitor.

Whether with family, friends, or anyone for that matter, you must learn to accept the notion that you will not always have things figured out. Even thinking that you do not want to burden those around you with your problems, yet will quickly pick up their burdens, is a form of savior complex rooted in ego. As a first generation anything, you must accept that there will be valleys in your story that are not shiny, come with applause, or social approval, just like anyone else.

As you learn to give space for your community to support you as you support them, you become more equipped to attain higher highs than you could every accomplish alone. As the old African proverb states:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

 Ultimately, what changed the trajectory of my struggles was accepting that I needed to communicate with my tribe. In communicating the truth of where I was struggling, my support circle was more aware and willing to help me get where I needed to be. Instead of being held back by ego and insecurity telling me that I had to succeed alone, I gave room for my community to support me as I supported them, and even in ways I was not able to support myself. What I found was that those that cared wanted to help me in the first place, and offered support with excitement rather than disdain and disapproval.

I eventually came to the realization that I was never meant to be alone on this journey. I never was alone. My arrival at any point in life was due to the collective effort of my dad working 16-hour shifts, my prayerful mother making sure my homework got done up through high school, my advisers/mentors sending a barrage of emails and calls to ensure I was using every resource to succeed, my professors that gave me an extension on an assignment when I was behind, even the lunch lady giving an encouraging word, and countless other contributors.

I came to realize that my story was not just my story, rather our story, and, in order to see it through, I had to give room for others to play their part. Such grace is not a handout, rather it is a hand-up. It is meant to uplift all of us, and a reminder that while we lift as we climb, we ourselves should be lifted as well. So, I will wrap up this read with three takeaways from my experience that allowed me to thrive as a change agent, first-generation college graduate, engineer, and more.

1. Find Your Tribe
   You should not go at any goal alone. Find your support team that speaks life into you, nurtures your goal, and keeps you accountable. I have yet to find any person who accomplished a major goal and truly did so alone. Even then, they probably could have accomplished much more with the right team behind them. As such, reflect on the company you keep. Are you intentional about encouraging, uplifting, and supporting each other? Do you have honest, vulnerable conversations about growth and accountability, or just pseudo-celebrations around only your high points? Build your tribe such that they are not just present for the accomplishments, but also to support the work that gets and keeps you there.

2. Be Transparent
    Give updates, both good and bad. Do not hide your lows. By being open with your support circle about where you stand you open the door for support to flood in. We all have blind spots, and by giving full rather than filtered updates, we give others the opportunity to call out what we may not see. Also, for those that come after you, you set better expectations for them of what the challenges can look like, thus giving them a better potential to avoid the pitfalls you experienced.

3. Speak Up
   There is nothing enlightened about suffering in silence. If you are in need of help, you save time, energy, and wasted effort by asking for help. As you enter new spaces be deliberate about what you want to accomplish and seek out mentors that help support you to that goal. Of course, take everything with a grain of salt, and make sure you’ve done your part as well. If you find yourself arriving at a roadblock, ask for insight from others on how they would approach it, and create a solution of your own referencing the experience of others.

Final Thoughts

It is important to recognize that your life is not the sum of your greatest moments of social praise. Instead, your story is defined by the spaces in between them. Your journey to success is defined by the work you put in, the growth, and impact made on the world around you on the way to those highlights, as well as the impact the world has on you. It is also critical to understand your story is a chapter in that of the greater story, the collective story. You are not meant to operate in a silo, so reach out to your tribe, beloved.

As you climb to newer heights as an agent of change in your family lineage, you will find value in leaning into your community, rather than feeling the need to drag it along. In doing so, you free yourself of the chains of ego that hold you back. You move closer towards your greatest self, and your people enjoy the reward of honest labor.