The Authenticity of Me.

              It isn’t hard to lose yourself in your work. And I’ll be honest, one of my personal pet peeves about my work is that I am so persistent in keeping my “life” and my “work-life” separate. Selfishly, I want to separate these two things; pretending that they don’t co-exist. In a way, I felt it would be easier. I thought by separating the two things I would ensure that I wouldn’t make my identity my work. But in doing so, I also don’t show my identity to those I work with. But then, I hide my work from those I love. And as someone who makes their whole message be based on “genuineness”, I sure fail to do that. I think one of the biggest flaws in social work is the separation of work and life, and the inability to balance it. As in, we often share only bits and pieces, or too much. But there is a possible healthy balance between the two worlds. I don’t want my story to be a story of just the work I do. I want it to be the flaws and strengths of my character. I don’t want to repeat the same answer to the same questions I get asked. I want to be creative, I want to grow, but remain consistent in who I am. And I am someone who wants to learn. I want to show genuineness in my work but my genuineness in my work comes from the genuineness of my character. I fail to do either by separating them.

              For example, the strangest thing to me is that the people I work with don’t know the name of my brother. And in practically every interview I have ever done, or in every speech or on every panel, I have mentioned him. The reason why is simple; he is mine why. My brother is my role model and best friend, and his name is Zaviar. He’s four years older than I am, married to a wonderful woman, and is working as a software developer. He’s 23 and has lived a crazy life of his own. Another thing is that people don’t know the names of my friends, and they don’t know much about my parents, or the city that I come from. You only know parts of my life and story that seem relevant to my work. Yet at the same time, every story, every bit of who I am, is relevant to my work. You can google what I do, but you can’t see who I am. And that’s an image I kept choosing to put.

              While it seems like a minuscule problem to have, it’s an important one to recognize. I firmly believe that if you change who you are in every setting you go to, you fail to represent what really matters; you. And it isn’t that I feel like I have failed to represent myself correctly in my work, but that I chose parts of me to expose. Which isn’t right. Especially when I am asking people to share their stories too. In a recent interview I did, I mentioned that a person’s voice isn’t “found”, rather it is recognized. The reality of life is that you always have had your voice. You don’t need to go searching anywhere to get it, you just need to take the steps forward to speak what you feel and think. This is still something I struggle with. I recognize what I can do with the voice I have but fear it.

              But I also don’t want that to overshadow the main goal of the YLG Project (my research initiative). The goal of the research isn’t to share my voice, or my perspective or opinion, or thought about “mental health”. It is meant to be a place where people can talk about themselves. I think personally, what kept me wanting to separate my home life from my “work” life, was the fear of being preachy. I always have been the person with something to say, so running an organization where I ask myself to take a back seat is humbling in a way.  I was afraid of being preachy to the audience I speak to. Then, I was afraid of being preachy to my friends and family at home. It isn’t that I am wise, or knowledgeable, or an expert of what I am talking about. Rather, it is that I am none of those things. I have so much to learn. And there are things in the way this world works that I feel are wrong but don’t have the background of whether or not that is true. It is not a flaw when you do not know something, it is a flaw when you know you don’t know but pretend to do.

This past July, I did a photoshoot interview with the clothing line IDONTMIND. Their whole message is to have honest conversations about our minds. And it reminded me of the authenticity that I value. I want to keep an honest and genuine conversation. Talking about the hardships, the lessons, the stories of what I do, where I come from, and what makes me, me is something I don’t mind doing. My authenticity comes with my failures and successes and everything in between.

So, I guess this post isn’t much of anything. I’m not talking about the results of my research or sharing a story that led me here today. But perhaps we can allow this to be a preface to what is to come. So here are some updates. Currently, I am interviewing people from India while conducting some interviews here in the States. I am working on extending my global outreach and am super hyped that I have been getting interviews from other countries. Though, I am also on campus right now for university. So bear with me as I figure out how to tell my professors that I can’t come to class today because I am speaking to someone from India over zoom.

What inspired this post was a phone call I had with a close friend of mine; she’s practically a sister to me. Her name is Natalie and she asked me why I don’t speak too much about my work to my friends and family around me. The answer to that is everything you have read up to this point. And if you go back to my post before this one, you’ll see at the end of it that I made it clear that the story I told wasn’t a “story of me or who I am”. I made it clear, as if I was ashamed, that my work is simply a product of who I am. So, allow me to end this differently. One, Natalie if you’re reading this, doesn’t this sound a little more like me? And two, I did mean what I said. My work is a product of who I am, not in a bad way, but in a way that embraces my flaws and strengths alike. I promise that the next post (which may happen sooner than later), will be one of more substance. I will be talking about my own cultural experience being raised in a mixed culture household, and how that inspired me to do what I do today.

But hopefully, you will see why this is a substantial post regardless.

Much love,

Seika Brown