Episode 82: the achiever
Thursday, June 25
Episode 81: The Achiever
Thursday, June 25
When I woke up this morning, George Floyd had been murdered.
When I woke up this morning, uprisings had erupted across the nation and eventually spilled out into the rest of the world.
When I woke up this morning , Black lives and rights and basic human safeties and freedoms were being talked about and fought for at a scale that I had never seen before in my life.
When I woke up this morning, the civil war was raging in Syria.
When I woke up this morning. Yemen.
When I woke up this morning, trans rights, were under threat. Trans and queer lives are constantly under threat.
When I woke up this morning, the Supreme court had offered temporary protection to the DACA program.
When I woke up this morning, a pandemic still existed
Perhaps before I go any further, I should tell you a little bit about who I am and who you've been listening to. My name is Sanjna. I was born and raised in Malaysia and that's where I am right now. I went to high school in Singapore and when I was 18, I moved to Nepal by myself to work at a nonprofit. The experiences that I had grew my love for documentary and my desire to tell stories that were bigger than me.
Then I moved to New York. I study international affairs and documentary film at Skidmore college in upstate New York. I'm a documentary filmmaker, a photographer, a writer, and I've helped to run a podcast on highlighting the voices of underrepresented communities in my university. It's called Pass the Mic.
Laura: When I hear about all that Sanjna has already accomplished as a senior in college, I’m a little blown away. But then I find this is often the case with young people in our world right now. We live in the age of Malala and Greta Thunberg. When it comes to changing our world, young people like Sanjna are leading the charge.
When Sanjna reached out to me to say that she was interested in taking part in this series looking at this time through the lens of the Enneagram, I got really excited. Because if you had to pick one type on the Enneagram to be a spokesperson for this generation of young people changing the world, it’s Sanjna’s type. I’ll let her tell you about it.
I identify with the Enneagram type three with a four wing. So the achiever and the individualist. I've always been very driven, ambitious, and a lot of my drive has been focused on personal goals, be it academic, or social, or career-driven. I've always given 110% of myself to anything I've done. I'm a big dreamer. And sometimes it's difficult to bring other people along with me on that journey.
It's a pretty lonely ride. This pandemic has made me more aware of this loneliness. I love and value my own company, but at a time of great upheaval like this, I'm realizing how valuable human connection and community is for sustaining us all through this fight. At the start of this pandemic. Two days after my country had gone into lockdown I got on one of the frantic few flights left home to Malaysia. I remember feeling my solitude. Like I'd never felt it before the isolation of being away from my friends. Away from opportunities.
These have been weeks of great unlearning for me. It's been humbling being at home
It was here in my childhood bedroom, that I first discovered what my Enneagram type was and what an Enneagram even was. It was also here. That I first heard about the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, and count this other black individuals lost to racism and police brutality.
I am a non black woman of color. And somehow the conjunction of both the Enneagram, a deeply personal introspective journey for me. And he's larger than life. Every day, brutal systems of anti-blackness. Took me down a long path of navigating who I am and who I want to grow into.
I'm not going to lie. I'm scared. I'm scared that I, or a loved one might get COVID. I'm scared of more things in my personal life falling apart or not going according to plan, I'm worried that I may not be able to go back to university in the fall. And I'm worried about the system that we live in, how terribly broken it is. It's always been broken, but the tears and cracks are deepening every day. And I'm afraid of the future. I've always sort of struggled in letting people into my personal vulnerable moments, showing my fear to just anyone. It was always a point of weakness for me, I can't just do everything on my own anymore.
Something that's been really valuable for me that I don't think I'll ever take for granted again, has been community. Over the past few months, I've relied on friends and family for comfort, for validation of my emotions. And in my learning process, and I want to give back more. I want to show up and be a better friend, a better disruptor of the status quo, a better, more ethical storyteller, a better communicator, and a better empathizer. I want to do more productive work.
One of my favorite quotes is by one of my favorite authors, Audrey Lord. And it goes. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. There's been a lot that I needed to unpack about my own activism and especially about how easily complicit we all can be an anti-blackness even when we don't intend it, especially when we don't intend it.
I've been constantly hit by waves of guilt, sorrow, doubt, imposter syndrome, joy in the most mundane, little things, gratitude and a recognition of my privilege. Like I've never recognized it before I've been recognizing my own shortcomings, the ways that I haven't always been the best ally, the ways that I need to improve, and it's been strange and humbling to say the least.
Black voices have been and continue to be systemically silenced in and out of the media. And up until recently, I wasn't sure if it was right for me to add my voice to a public sphere but over the last few weeks, I decided I want to add my voice to speaking out about black lives and black power.
And how much of an inspiration black movements are to me and my life. People of color in the U S have the fights and struggles of black people historically to thank for our successes and our wins today. Within my own intimate South Asian community. I see the ways that we cherish the idea of the hardworking minority. We tokenize the idea of the black underdog, who makes it and paves the way for all of us, people of color.
There's a lot of blaming on the amorphous blob called the system when we're part of the system.
We desperately need to show up for black people now more than ever recognize the ways that we haven't really in the past. So in my daily life, I've been trying to recenter anti-blackness in conversations with my loved ones.
I live with my parents. It's three of us in our house. So there's loads of time for intimate deep conversation. Which can be really hard sometimes It's a lot easier to tune out and disconnect, but I know I can't do that. I think that's the achiever in me surfacing at these moments of frustration when I feel like giving up to say, no, this is work you should be doing.
Get up and keep fighting. there's work to be done? Petitions to be signing books, to be reading letters, to be writing to institutions, to confront anti-blackness all things bigger than me. I'm driven every day because I see young people my age, waking up each morning and showing up no matter how hard or disheartening or painful a fight is. I can't turn on social media and not see young black activists fighting with everything they have for their joy and freedoms and safety. And it's empowering for all of us.
I'm proud of my generation. I'm an all of young people of color, especially young black people. My friends, my mentors, who've been fighting this fight and show me every day, the power of community. At the beginning of everything in March, as the pandemic worked its way through them, opportunities hopes, plans, relationships started shattering before me. I started to reassemble the pieces bit by bit. And the pieces, the shards they're reflecting back on me like a mirror showing me all the ways that this time is crucial.
I was talking to my friend the other day. About the future and about how to continue holding each other accountable for doing the work to dismantle these systems of anti-blackness and racism. We decided on three things, re-imagining doing one small or revolutionary thing a day. Be it signing a petition paying reparations forward, donating to a black organization, And to also know when to take breaks and lean on friends
It's a time for revolutionary change. It's a time to speak up and not disconnect from it all and get up and do the work. There's a long road ahead of us. There's been so much pain and so much confusion already, but I'm glad that things are surfacing with this much passion and vigor.
Maybe things can change. I want to believe it.
Laura: Like Sanjna, I want to believe that things can change. When I see people like her dreaming of how we can change our world, I feel hopeful. Her understanding and humility make her exactly the kind of leader we need most right now. Someone who cares about making a difference, but knows she can’t do it alone.
Enneagram 3s will get more done in a given day than any other type, rivaled only by 8s in this regard. They’re confident, ambitious, and energetic, and they’re driven by the desire to feel valuable and worthwhile in society. At their worst, they can be image-conscious workaholics. But when 3s realize their need for community and are willing to be vulnerable, they can become true role models that inspire the rest of us.
The daily sanity I’m learning from Sanjna today is that no matter how big our ideas are, we need each other if we’re going to have endurance in seeing those ideas through. If there’s a 3 in your life who is working hard to make this world better--maybe even working themselves to the bone to do it--take a moment today to thank them. If they can hear it, give them permission to rest, to lean on a friend for help.
If you’re a 3 and you’ve been leading the charge or carrying the weight of the world or both, I want to say to you today that you have value not because of the things you do, but because of who you are. You could stop all of the doing right now, and you would still be you. And that’s enough.