Reflections on Walking in New Shoes

As we transition to new roles, we add new layers to our professional and personal identity. Sometimes a new role can feel like a new pair of shoes: they look great, but they can rub and make our heels sore, but eventually, the shoes become fully ours, fit well, and are a pleasure to wear. Here is a story of a time of shifting roles.

Who Running Free

As a child, I used to love running barefoot. The freedom of the body to express itself naturally in the sunshine was pure happiness. This is what made me pursue gymnastics. Playing around in the Earth’s soil, I had no boundaries in the field. As soon as middle school started, I had to let go of gymnastics because there was no bright career for such a sport in my country. I was told to study Science. It was challenging to transition into this identity.

As a child, I used to love visiting the Lake from the outer side of the technology institute campus. The water there was clear, so I would look at my own reflection in the puddle of water. I wouldn’t see the water waving freely by me. I kept waving ✋🏻 to my own reflection. The grass on the other side seemed greener- on growing up, I thought of going into the technology institute campus.

Right out of high school, I started as an undergraduate engineering student. I never really understood what it means to be an engineer. My identity as an engineer felt like it was superimposed by the social and economic needs of my developing country. At my core, I wanted to be an explorer: running and making fundamental discoveries. I did not know about what an engineer does until I came to understand that the only possible jobs that my society talked about were that of an engineer or a doctor. An engineer just makes use of what is given to reach a fixed goal. There is no room for exploration of what is not given. There is no traveling without a destination in mind.

It was challenging to transition into this identity. But so was transitioning into an academically oriented student for the gymnast in me. Usually, we get bigger shoes to fit us as we grow ourselves. With respect to career, the opposite seemed to be true. Amidst the narrow space that I had left, I had to rightly fit my big dreams of exploration. In my engineering heavy campus, I tried hard to contain my spirit of discovery, but it would overflow time and again, eventually leading to a flood. Sometimes it was in the form of an innocent question: I hadn’t really understood it all my life, and so I asked “What is Mass? Where does it originate from?” The Professor seemed stunned for a good minute. He asked me back, “What school did you go to? How did you pass the entrance exam to this college?” Other times, the overflow was in the form of expressing a new method to solve a standard engineering question. The original way would be awarded zero marks because here there was no right answer except to use the formula that had been taught to us.

There was the Lake on our campus, which used to flow silently. Now that I was on the other side, I would go to visit it from the inside. Watching closely, people would throw all kinds of trash in it. But it never said a thing. I would go to see my own reflection in it. However, the society had added so many layers of their own things that the water wasn’t clear enough to see my self in it. One night it rained heavily. My room flooded, and all my books drowned. I had to shift. The floods washed everything clear. The next morning the sun shone brightly. I was able to see myself in the water.

I started exploring the study of natural sciences from the unique source of natural professors on our engineering heavy campus. Over the next one or two years, I found myself up to date with the natural training that a typical scientist is shaped in. This shift also helped me get over my engineering studies. I happened to top my class. In my ultimate year, I got a letter. Somehow, I was accepted by the Letters, Sciences and Arts School, even though I had no undergraduate degree in the same. They say there is an eternal sunshine of the natural mind. This was the Sun that shone brightly. The letter was a typed one, but for me it was pure gold.

The transition to a new identity feels daunting, but what I realized is that this is the identity I always wanted. Every time the new shoes would take some time to adjust to. This time, the new shoes were no shoes at all. Now, I am running barefoot. This is the identity in which I see my natural self.

From the water and the air to the light of the sun, the Earth is the new Shoe that I wear. I am running free.

                                      #walkinginshoes
 
                          #newshoes# #reflection# #shoesold#
 
                                       #runningfree