Reflecting on life goals in 2020
So, my three long-term goals in life are to 1) build transparency and accountability in power structures locally and globally, 2) build systems for resiliency and sustainability, and 3) using narrative and storytelling to educate and empower people to create change in their own communities. These are very big goals that I may or may not ever achieve in life – but I’ve been working towards them for the majority of my life.
As you can tell these goals are super lofty and there aren’t exactly clear definitions of what success looks like in each of them. So my experimental approach had been to create systems and not worry about the outcome. This year I had many areas of growth and struggle in approaching these and I’ll break them down here. This post is mostly for myself to clarify my own thinking. If it helps you think about your own life, please feel free to read on. If not, it may be best to stop now and read more of my useful posts such as How to illustrate a story.
Building transparency and accountability in power structures locally and globally
This is an area that I am proud of the impact that my team at USC Equity Research Institute have made. This year we refreshed the National Equity Atlas, a tool widely used by policymakers, advocates, and philanthropic groups to think about their approaches to their policies and programs. In addition, we collectively worked together to create the California Immigrant Data Portal, a data website focused on disaggregating data for immigrant communities and helping shape a more honest narrative around immigrants in California and the United States. I have also been lucky to work on some ongoing projects for our Solidarity Economics and Women and Girls Initiative Work, projects which hopefully will create dialogue about how we collectively think about the economy and shed light on the ways that COVID and our prior social inequities are impacting women and girls in Los Angeles County, respectively.
Where I didn’t make much progress on is how to increase transparency and accountability in power structures globally. I have been thinking about approaching this by potentially building a data portal for India, similar to the National Equity Atlas – but I don’t have the web development skills or the relationships to attempt something like this. The only real skill I have here is my background in policy/planning and my data analysis skills from the approaches I’ve taken at work. Nevertheless, after reading The Power of Starting Something Stupid, I decided I should try and put myself out there anyway. I reached out to friends and family who were able to connect me with a few really great people and organizations focused on impactful work. I was able to find some useful datasets which I could explore further – however, I lacked understanding about what kind of work might actually be of value to people working in the field in India. This is where I’ve gotten stuck – how do I connect with the right people to see if I can provide any value to them..
Build systems for resiliency and sustainability
2020 really put my systems approach thinking in this area to the test. Over the last couple of years I had set up my life in a way to maximize my mental and physical health. For my physical health, I had set up my life in such a way that I would cycle home from work everyday and attend taekwondo classes on Mondays and Wednesdays for two hours each. For my mental health, I would spend a few hours each week painting and sharing my work on Instagram to develop my relationship with a community of artists. When taekwondo ended initially, I started doing workouts using Chloe Ting’s workout plans – which has been so valuable. But the longer the pandemic carried on, the more my emotional blocks to physical health became. I am still trying – but I realize that I really need accountability with others in order to keep up with these goals – they aren’t things I can achieve on my own without that.
In the absence of the physical health work, I tried to push myself further into art as a creative hobby – even considering starting a small art business – which had it’s successes and challenges (I’ll talk about this in another article). But what I came to realize through this was that in trying to sell art, I felt like I was trying to sell my own soul – because art inherently lacks any value on it’s own – people value it because of the message or the person creating it. So, I instead started focusing more attention on my weekly art class over zoom which I started in March. This class, creating art consistently with a handful of friends has brought a lot of beauty into my life. I feel so grateful to have a group of people that choose to come together each week to do things that create joy. I’m still working on each of these areas and hopefully will continue to grow my physical and mental health practices in the next year.
Using narrative and storytelling to educate and empower people to grow their own communities
This goal has been a somewhat recent edition to my list. I had done an exercise of writing my eulogy about five or six years ago as a way to figure out what impact I wanted to have in life. In it, without really knowing why, I had written down that I wanted to be three things – a social justice advocate, an artist, and a filmmaker. When I started working at the USC Equity Research institute with my friend who was interested in becoming an actor – I decided it was worth it to take a plunge and explore this new area of work. We started taking filmmaking classes together in 2019 – and even with the pandemic, I continued to take them and created a few short films. I met a friend who shared my vision for narrative change through these classes. We have started a channel called Rethink Desi to delve into this further. We have been brainstorming about it and trying to have a more systematic approach to how we can build community through this work – but I hope that it will help build a more collective approach to social impact in 2021. I also got asked to help folks on the California Planning Roundtable to think about how to do a video series on racial justice in urban planning – which is super interesting and fun work.
My other project for narrative change called Citizen Play has been with a friend from undergrad who I have remained connected with throughout the years. We have been laying the groundwork for a greeting card company that focuses on creating products that 1) allow people to be more emotionally vulnerable with each other, 2) celebrate the experiences of immigrant communities that often never receive cards that reflect their struggles 3) connect with immigrant cultural experiences in the United States and create spaces for them to be themselves and feel understood. I’ve thought about a lot of entrepreneurial things I could try over the years – but this seems like the one that would be most meaningful and really just super fun to do.
What I’ve realized this year is that making small steps in fun and meaningful ways is what makes me happiest. Nothing has to be perfect as long as I keep making some progress. I hope to further refine these goals and my systems for how to approach them over time. And I believe the longer I live, the more I will.
