I was 8yrs old when I numbed myself from the pain of the world

Picture me with neatly parted hair, sitting in a Toyota Corolla. Unforgiving Karachi summer heat. We are driving to a local market to pick up something my mom wants.

🚦We stop at a red traffic light when I hear a knock on the car window. A boy my age in ragged clothes asking for money. I feel the heartache like a jab in my chest, a big lump in my throat. My mother gives me some money and I hand it to the boy.

🚦At the next traffic light, it happens again. This time someone who could’ve been my mother’s age. My mother gives me some more money and I hand it to the woman.

And then another knock on the window.

And another…

And another…

The conversation in the car goes from “How unfortunate!” to “Well, he seems fit. He could be working instead…” to “They’ll just use this money to buy cigarettes…” to “Don’t look at them. Just stare ahead.”

I stop looking. My heart is breaking but I stare ahead. I am avoiding acknowledging other people’s existence. Instead, I am running mental logic models of “who best deserves this 5 rupee bill?”

💔 I numbed myself from the pain of other people’s suffering. It was too overwhelming. 💔

Recently, you might have read about the devastating floods in Pakistan. It was all over the news.

A friend of mine asked if I was okay and if my family in Karachi was okay. I said, “Everything is okay. Honestly, I haven’t been following the news. It’s all too much and I feel disconnected from it.”

She responded (and I paraphrase):

“And isn’t that the calling of our times? Do the internal work so we can witness and hold the suffering of others, all around us, instead of running away from it.”

That stuck with me, yall!!!

And it honestly perfectly encapsulates why I do the work I do.

I work with mission-driven leaders like you who are working on the toughest problems of our times: building equitable access to resources, bettering mental health, adapting in the face of climate change, etc. Who are doing this in the private, public, and philanthropic sectors.

And this work comes with constant heartbreak, trauma, emotional overload.

To do this work well, to show up to this work consistently, to persist… we — as people AND organizations — have to face the reality of our world with a soft front.