Rediscovering My Identity and Priorities

Six years ago, after wrapping up my office where I ran my communication-design business, my plan was to continue operations from home. 

After 10 years of running the business, I hit a snag with my cashflow in 2016. The introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015, cascaded into clients becoming tightfisted in their project budgets; suppliers hiking their materials and service rates fearing any untoward impact caused by the GST; and a ridiculous screw up by a new board of directors of a local Christian magazine that I had been designing for several years -- this magazine gave me a great deal of stability in my cashflow. Additionally, my ex and I broke-up at the end of 2015 which sent me spiraling into a depression that sapped my energy and focus to work. I was spent. Unclear. Unproductive. And, very jaded.

So I decided to cut off all overheads and moved my operations home. I sold off assets such as computers, office furniture and some excess stock of t-shirts I had designed. I had also relinquished my trusted co-worker who helped a great deal in my writing projects. A closure had to be done. On the brighter side, I felt that this was my chance to spend unscheduled, meaningful time with mom (most of which was catch-up time from the years before when work got too crazy). Mom was progressing in age, and recovery from the stroke she had in 2006 was slowing down.

The biggest hurdle in the transition was giving up something that I had built for years, only because of that one regrettable financial hit. Although I wasn't giving up the business but the mere work-structure, yet it felt like severing off a limb. Then, I was beginning to warm up to the idea of being employed again, on condition that I had the allowance to have my design work as a side hustle. For me, my work wasn't just a function of earning an income, it was an identity. 

But a turn of events happened in 2017 when I was offered a job in a non-governmental agency. The job was primarily to work with children in crises, specifically with unaccompanied and separated children - most of whom were refugee children. As a case manager, I would have to interview and conduct a needs assessment of the children referred to us, develop a care plan with them collaboratively, and to journey with them until their cases were reasonably resolved. During this time, I learnt so much about paying attention, building the rapport with others, and learning to trust my gut. I learnt to identify with the vulnerable, the disenfranchised and the marginalized. The work grew intense, and drifted me further away from my goal of being self-employed. Yet, this humanitarian work remained meaningful. 

Burn-outs were frequent. Ironically, the burn-outs didn't come from the communities or the cases I worked with, but from the work structure and the internal expectations. I questioned if I was just incompatible for the work or if I had hit my ceiling of limitations, when it came to tedious matters like the paper work and reporting. But work expectations are expectations. 

In 2021, we formed a new NGO that aimed to work with a wider scope of marginalised communities and not just children. For the first year, I was highly confused about my role and expectations. Nothing proposed seemed to work or move. Once again, the feelings of incapability came looming in. Was I that ineffective that I couldn't find my voice, my ground? In the past, I would singlehandedly manage big projects and derive the results required - design jobs, writing projects, campaigns for government agencies, corporates, NGOs, startups - under my belt, I had over 80 clients, including several multinationals who had signed me on long-term. And here, the feelings of insufficiency were unsettling.

A year later, and a lot of fine tuning and adjustments, thankfully there is a lot more clarity on my role as some of the dots have been connected to my identity as a creative person. My role as a storyteller in this new NGO puts me in a position where I can pay attention to another's story, and in doing so build meaningful bonds. I am given the trust and liberty to retell their stories with the hopes that gaps between communities can be eliminated. I am trusted with some creative control over the output (design, photographing and filming how they choose to share their stories). 

My mother has become more frail, since becoming wheel-chair bound in 2018 (a year after my NGO engagement). My biggest regret will be: to miss the boat again, to be there for her, because I had chosen to occupy my time with work and expectations outside of my control. There has never been a day that goes by without me questioning if I should be moving on from this work and go back to my original plan to stay home and spend unscheduled time with her. I had a working model - where I could work, earn sufficiently, and not have to worry about external expectations. 

I suppose the litmus test for me is whether I would still do the things I am doing now, if I were not paid for it. And my simple answer is yes. If I am not employed, I will still want to document stories, bring people together, find ways to help people in need and journey with the vulnerable. It is something I have been doing way, way before joining the social work and humanitarian field. It is something that is driven by my faith in Jesus Christ. 

I suppose, in the process of connecting more dots, I should keep to my priorities in life, without being perturbed about making the right decisions. Another opportunity to learn to trust my gut.