What choosing DKU and China did to me
I actually don’t remember why I decided to apply to a new university that I was going to be the the inaugural class for. I also don’t really know why I committed to studying in China. It was never part of the plan. I was on my way to going to an Ivy League in the US and that was it. But obviously that did not happen, as I’m writing this 4 years later, almost about to graduate as the first class of a very unusual school that was not an Ivy league or an Ivy-like school and was definitely not in the US. Well… sort of.
Writing from memory is a tricky thing because I might have altered the way I remember the events, but it was the most unusual, genuinely happy feeling meeting all these other 18-year olds from around the world. And this sounds so cliché but it is true. The first year on campus (August 2018 to May 2019) was nothing short of a magical time. At any given instant you’d have people from 3 different countries just vibing. I use the word people because I haven’t seen the kind of relationship the students, the faculty, the admin, the staff at DKU had exist anywhere else in the world.
And this first year, a beautiful blend of eating cucumber flavored Lays and spicy Oreos (found only in China I think) and having vulnerable, raw, honest conversations with the night as our only witness, changed me in very fundamental ways:
My relationship to people and myself:
Sitting in a room with one person from every corner of the world will have you listen to things you genuinely would not have otherwise heard. Yes, not even if you actively look for different opinions on topics. But this taught me to put myself in other people’s shoes and truly try to see where they are coming from. It’s a game changer on how you view events. You deal with conflict better, you become less rigid, but you also understand yourself better because you understand why you believe what you believe in and why you have the values you have.
My relationship to life:
My mentor and best friend on college told me that at each stage we are standing on life looking at things from a different perspective. Cross cultural living took me to a place where I could see life and the world as so big and so much more than just me or the ones around me. What was home? What was a career? What was my purpose in this world? How big was my world - everything changed. And even today, 4 years later, I struggle to find exactly how, because my perceptions and outlook on life have evolved, but I know that I love it. And I wish more people in my first home could experience it.
The meaning of cross cultural:
Cross cultural doesn’t necessarily mean people from a different country. Crazy, right? Exiting and reentering Lahore made me realize that cross cultural people are all around me. Essentially anyone who doesn’t share my norms and values is from a different culture and somehow this has taught me both kindness as well as setting boundaries when it comes to interpersonal relationships from work to friendships to family. It’s also taught me that cross cultural skills are all the more critical for me from a business perspective.
I’m basically a ping pong ball floating on the ocean:
Yes I know that’s a weird way to put it. But I learnt that life isn’t constant, and neither am I. I’m a ping pong ball and the ocean beneath me is everything I hold inside of me. The air and everything that’s not the ball and not the ocean represents everything external in life. Everything is flowing in it’s own pattern and that’s the only thing I really need to understand. Some days will be a high tide, some days will be a steady smooth sailing, some days will be like a sea storm but none of it will last forever, and all I have to do is to just float.