Letters to My Daughter

Today I began reading Peter Han's Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Leaders in Business, Politics, Arts, Science, and Nonprofits Got Started . The book speaks to young people, born between 1975 and 1985, who yearn for making a difference in the world, but struggle with making the decisions that will build their careers. In many ways, this book is an intergenerational dialogue. Han believes that there is a great deal young people can learn from older generations, and that the best way to glean that guidance is to ask the right questions of the older generation. Specifically, Han asks leaders across sectors about their first experiences out of college, about the formidable experiences they've had before they became elite achievers. How did they manage themselves? How did they start out?  "Young people remain hungry for perspective on how to translate their aspirations to achievement," he writes. "And older people remain capable of offering that perspective" (i...

Given the changes to Blogger, a service I have used on and off for the past 7 years, I have decided to start with an introduction.  My name is Sadia. I am a Project Manager at a nonprofit consulting organization in New York City. We provide capacity building expertise and strategic consulting in 3 major areas: resource development, governance and special events. I am responsible for tracking outcomes, program support, marketing and communications, and new business development.    I have extensive marketing, program support and monitoring experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. I've basically grown up within the nurturing spaces of NYC nonprofits like South Asian Youth Action, where I served a Board member, and Sadie Nash Leadership Project , which helps NYC youth become life-long learners and leaders.  My greatest achievement was starting  Remembering Forward , an intergenerational community arts program for diverse young women (ages 14-...

A major theme in Democracy in America is Tocqueville's recurring evocation of Americans as ceaselessly active and restlessly striving. The American spirit is energetic and enterprising. Americans are never at rest or settled, but always in a hurry, in permanent agitation and constant motion, incessantly jostling one another. Nothing is fixed. Perpetually on the move, Americans change jobs and homes whenever opportunity calls. Tocqueville marvels at meeting men who have successively been lawyers, farmers, merchants, ministers of the Gospel and doctors. (xxxii) I promised myself that I would attempt to read this book, since I had first encountered this title in high school. I was surprised to learn that Tocqueville was only 25 years old when he makes the trip to America, and begins writing his intellectual opus. He arrives in America on the pretext of observing American prisons, but remains here for 9 months studying the culture, people, and way of life. His observations have become...

This shouldn't be so hard. It's not a trick question. The answer can't be googled It's not something I can read somewhere else and then memorize. But why does it feel impossible to answer? The question is simply: What is your dream job? What would it take for you to actually try to attain your dream?  Answers can be anything, you want to be a chef, pilot, designer, dancer,etc...  Do you feel that there is anything that would act as a barrier to you chasing after your dream? This was the question I got at a recent interview. I was supposed to do a writing sample on the above question and for some reason, I found it really hard to answer. So I'm back here on my blog, sorting through the various threads I could use to answer this question. Here is a draft of what I would write. Please feel free to comment-- My dream job is to write professionally. I dream of writing essays, reports, evaluations, and fiction as a full time job--perhaps multiple part-time jobs. I ...

Congress.org - News : Activist walks a lonely path

Columbia or Penn? It is June 8th, and I thought I would have made up my mind by now. In fact, when I tell people (all 3 of my friends), I'm going to Penn, it would seem that I have already made up my mind. Yet the fact that I still have options until June 15th is actually quite frustrating, but in the best way decisions are fought with tension. Columbia or Penn? Why not Princeton? I hadn't even considered Princeton. One look at their admissions numbers, and I felt like running, screaming, fleeing towards NYU. I've been to Princeton, for its graduation and some events on campus. What strikes me is the overall INTENSITY of the university, the level of commitment students have to their studies. Driving through the campus at 11PM, or 10AM, the campus is quite, and I imagine the entire campus is studying somewhere. I found it thoroughly inspiring but I could not muster the same enthusiasm during my years at NYU. I remember the days I was at Cornell for a summer honors progra...

From "Here is New York"* (1948) by E. B. White There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her ...

That's a totally generous free woman. She's fearless. She's not afraid of anything. She has very few material things. She has a little self-supporting skill that she performs. She doesn't run anybody's life. She's available for almost infinite love. If you need her--she'll deliver. And she has complete clarity about who she is. -- Toni Morrison The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations." --"The Creative Process", Baldwin Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last scared but the integrity of your own mind. --"Se...