Taking the plunge…

In a few hours, I will be hopping on a plane to fly roughly 8300 miles around the world. Now that the day is finally here, I’m not entirely sure how I feel, although one adjective probably isn’t entirely sufficient.

Excited? Hell yea! As amazing as San Francisco is (and I fully intend on returning one day), I’ve been daydreaming about living and working abroad since before I even graduated college. Never did I ever think I would be going to India of all places, but hey, one thing I’ve learned post-college is sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches.

Nervous? A little bit. I’m going to be doing work I have zero experience in, in an environment I also have zero experience in. What if I’m no good?

Worried? Every time I mention to someone I’m going to India, undoubtedly the first two things he or she says are: “DONT DRINK THE WATER”, and “It’s really dirty over there”. Yea…that’s cool. I’ll bring some Iodine tablets, hold my nose and watch where I step if need be. What I am worried about are:

1. The weather – Having spent essentially my entire life in either the Bay or Santa Barbara, I am a pretty big pansy when it comes to heat/humidity. But hey, maybe I’ll sweat off all the post-college-corporate-america-induced pounds!

2. Sports – I know nothing about cricket. Zero. Please let there be a basketball court somewhere in my city/town/village and if not, at least please let me have internet fast enough  to illegally stream american sports.

3. HOW AM I GOING TO GO NEARLY AN ENTIRE YEAR WITHOUT EATING BEEF!!!

Nostalgic? Already? Yea I know…

The past 3 and a half weeks have been a blur. However, between preparing for my upcoming assignment and being my 5 year old sister’s personal chauffeur, I’ve been able to spend some great quality time with family and friends. It’s made me really appreciate the wonderful people I have in my life and fully realize the one thing I will most likely miss about being home is my relationships and experiences with these people. Hopefully, with Gchat, Whatsapp, FaceTime…etc, it won’t be so bad.

Surreal? It still feels a bit like being in a dream. Something you dream about doing and experiencing one day…and for that day to actually be here…woah

On to the next…

Today marks the end of one chapter in my life and the beginning of the next.

On the day representing the 26th year of my existence and the official start of the later half of my twenties, I have decided to change paths and go down a new road. After spending nearly 4 years in the corporate world, working at jobs that were challenging yet uninspiring, I’ve finally mustered up the courage to leave it all behind and pursue some of the things that have truly interested and inspired me.

I’m not going to lie, the comforts of corporate life have been nice. Getting a solid paycheck every two weeks, living with friends in an awesome apartment in San Francisco, eating out whenever I feel like it, planning that next vacation…these are all great perks. But those comforts in themselves are not enough. They are empty, selfish things if only consumed by oneself and serve no greater purpose than for personal indulgence. I’ve always strived for something more. I came across a quote in a book I’m currently reading called The International Bank of Bob (highly recommended btw) that I feel accurately portrays my own feelings:

anything we do gets its meaning from the reason we do it–usually, the people we do it for. The part of ourselves that we give to to others in our efforts–that’s where we find our own value. Maybe life takes on meaning to the degree our efforts and love are connected

I have never been someone who was motivated solely by material wealth. Ultimately, I want to do something that matters. To not live just for personal gain but to also make a positive contribution, in whatever way that may be, to society and other people’s lives. Call me idealistic. Call me naive. But these feelings are what ultimately made me decide to embark on the journey I am about to take.

In a couple of weeks, I will be leaving the Bay Area to go work in India for the next 9 months. I am going to be volunteering with a non-profit organization named Technoserve, which aims to develop business solutions to poverty by linking enterprising people in developing countries to information, capital and markets. The specific project I am supposed to spend most of my time working on deals with developing business skills for Farmer Producer Groups. Producer Groups are formal or informal groups of smallholder farmers that aggregate together in order to combine the social objectives of cooperatives with the commercial goals of enterprises. The project aims to provide assistance and training to farmers in all major aspects of their businesses, including marketing, operations, capital raising, risk management, governance, business planning and financial management.

My exact role on the project is unclear at the moment and to be perfectly honest, I truly have no idea what to expect. That is both really exciting and really scary at the same time. I’ve come to learn from past adventures that many times the best experiences tend to happen when you go in with no expectations. Being a very logical and rational person by nature, my instinct is to weigh out the pros and cons of each situation, but sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and believe that it will all work itself out…

So here we go. On to the next chapter.