Type A

I've always been competitive, restless, impatient, and not just a goal setter, but an adamant goal achiever. This mentality, ingrained in me through my environment, consequently made me overbearing, and an idealist who fears failure more than anything else in the world. My insane need for success has made me always moving, always watching, and always analyzing how I can continuously adapt to chase this perfection.

Now, I'm in a weird stand still. I achieved what I wanted as a girl. I kicked ass in school, I got an amazing start to my career, and here I am still not satisfied. I'm already planning, planning how I can acquire more skills, more networking, more ideas, to keep achieving. I restlessly type out my goals on my laptop, dissatisfied that so much of it requires me to wait and to observe, before I start taking action. I want to make life-altering moves now, not months or years from now.

I've been spending a lot of time at home recently. I'm in that lull before I begin my career, supposedly enjoying a care-free summer, but my mind wants so much more. It wants productivity, results, and of course-success. However, something interesting happened today. My mom asked me to help her in the kitchen making an elaborate lunch and I hesitatingly agreed. Cooking is not my strong suit; somehow, I could never find the patience or interest to listen, follow, and execute a full meal. But my mom so sweetly asked, so I spent the afternoon chopping vegetables, simmering spices, and carefully listening to her instructions. So many moments I would get frustrated by how long the process took, and how much effort had to go into making one meal. I would impatiently ask my mom what the next step was, and would get disgruntled when she would explain that I had to wait. Cooking was not the fast-paced, frenzy-driven environment I was used to. I had to exercise skill, precision, and most of all patience. Patience in the execution. Patience in the results. And most importantly, patience in the failures.

As I sat with my mom eating the roti (flatbread) that took me eight tries to get semi-correctly, I had an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. Through talking and laughing, listening to Kirtan (musical mediation) and cooking, we had spent a beautiful afternoon enjoying each other's company. It made me understand that success for me has to slowly change its definition. Up until now, success had always meant the highest grades, the best internships, the most extracurriculars, and I can feel that trend continuing. The need to be the best at work, to get the earliest promotion, to move on to even a better company, to go to the top MBA school....the list continues. But is that really my definition of success? What about learning to be content at home, to spend time with my family, to explore hobbies and interests, to create with the expectation of failure, rather than the fear of it?

Now, I am slowly grasping that my changing definition of success comes from more than just career development; it comes from my family, from pursuing my passions, from diving into spirituality, from constantly growing in all aspects of my life.

Here's praying that when I get so engrossed at work, take on more projects than I can count, and sleeplessly and unconsciously grind through life, I am awakened with the realization that my definition of success ultimately lies in my inner happiness: from being holistic, from serving others, serving myself, and serving God.