Fear, Exposed – Featuring Avril David

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There’s this amazing poem by Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet, about taking a pick-axe and tearing up the foundations of your house.

He says:

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“Tear down this house. A hundred thousand new houses 
can be built from the transparent yellow carnelian 
buried beneath it, and the only way to get to that 
is to do the work of demolishing and then 
digging under the foundations….

Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation.
You’ve got to quit this seamstress work…

Rip up one board from the shop floor and look into
 the basement. You’ll see two glints in the dirt.”

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Man, do I know that feeling. The pick-axe? Fear, loss, change. The house? My self-image. The two glints in the dirt? All of the treasure that I have rediscovered since.

Simply put, 2010 kicked my ass.

The things I experienced last year were things I never imagined I would. Things like, getting laid off two months before my wedding day, breaking off an engagement to a person I had been with for 3 years and known for 17, holding 3 different jobs in 2 different states (yes, in between wedding planning, I also managed to move), those sorts of things.

“What will they think?”

2010 was the year when I came face to face with long-held fears and assumptions, basically rules, which I had assumed I had to live by. I’m not entirely over all of my fears – but I’ve named them. And that’s the toughest part. As a result of the tumult and change, I no longer think with “society’s” mind, but with my own.

I was raised by strict, though loving, immigrant parents (i.e., a ‘no dating until you’re married’ kind of parenting). “This is the land of opportunity” they would always say. I had perfect attendance in school from 1st grade until my senior year, when I missed one day… to attend my sister’s graduation from medical school. And then I went to Princeton.

I always seemed to have it “together” and I clung to this image. Of perfection and success and playing by the rules.

Then, at the age of 23, I had my first serious relationship. He was a friend I’d known since childhood and because I believed we knew each other so well, we moved in together a few months after we started dating. Things were fine at first. Until, they really, really weren’t. But I wanted it to work. This was the perfect age to start dating someone seriously. So perfect that I allowed myself to become delusional – pretending not to see red flag behaviors and unhealthy dynamics between us. I pretended not to see it so that I could be married by age 27 and follow the path I was meant to follow.

I would get that white picket fence if it killed me, which arguably, it nearly did.

As these things tend to go, things in our relationship got worse, not better. Yet still, I refused to give up, even accepting a marriage proposal two and half years later that I should not have accepted. I posted the news on my Facebook page, started planning furiously for our wedding, thinking that I could trick myself by just moving forward. Career-wise, I was working in consulting, writing and blogging about careers for Forbes.com and I was interviewing women leaders at the UN for a book project with a friend and UN staff member.

It all looked so good from the outside. I kept it up, I kept it going…until July of 2010.

Crack in the foundation

In July of 2010 – the pick-axe found me. I got laid off.

Suddenly, I found myself unemployed and engaged in a bad relationship. The wedding was planned for early September. This was not the life I had planned. Something about this jolt from the outside gave me courage to accept rather than resist the pick-axe. At this point, I was conspiring with that pick-axe – kind of a “bring it on” mentality. I no longer cared what anyone thought. The venue was booked, my dress was bought, extended family from abroad had been invited. I felt so bad for my parents. I knew it was going to be tough on them. I even debated just going through with the wedding and then quietly getting a divorce immediately afterwards just to spare them the shame. But I also knew that I couldn’t do it anymore. I called off my wedding. And with that, the foundation was broken.

This was not a “perfect, follow the rules” move. I was free.

The foundation is that your life generally is what others tell you it should be. Break up the foundation, and find those glints that were buried in the dirt. The invaluable treasure – your heart, your soul, your feelings – your GPS system for your life. Who you are without the rules. Who you always were.

With my newfound freedom, I focused on a book about UN women leaders that I had put on the backburner in the midst of wedding planning. As I wrote the stories, I found that the women we interviewed became an inspiration for my own life. Their stories contained elements of career defeat and then triumph, of tragically losing or divorcing a spouse and then finding new love. We planned to self-publish the book on March 8, 2011, in honor of International Women’s Day.

Think What They Will

What will they think, what will they think, what will they think? – when this voice becomes so loud that you can no longer hear your own, it’s time to lean into the pick-axe. Welcome the destruction, because in that destruction is where you find transformation.

At some point, you have to say, screw it. Turn it around until “What will they think” becomes let them “Think what they will”.

I will be an old maid. Why didn’t you go the traditional route? Suck it up and just get married? How could you do that to your family? Plenty of people stay in bad relationships. It’s better than being alone, right?

NO. Because I can no longer pretend my feelings don’t exist now that they are no longer buried. I trust them.

I will not be taken seriously. Why didn’t you go the traditional route? Find one job and stick with it…until retirement? Why do you move around so much?

NO. Because I have to follow what interests me. Because I love to write and travel and dance and I care about the environment, and the arts, and education and I’m fascinated by innovation. I am not one thing. I write, I dance, I coach, I inspire. And I love that.

I will be laughed at. Why didn’t you go the traditional route, find a real publisher? Self-published books never do well.

NO. Because we believe in our book and the stories it contains. Because we have our own creative plan and our own deadline and we’re going to make it happen. On our own terms.

The Hidden Treasure

A month after losing my job and zeroing in on my book as a result, I found a new job…at a better firm, with more pay. Funny how that pick-axe works. There always seems to be hidden treasure once you’re willing to break up the foundation.

And, I’m dating again. And rediscovering the fullness of life – of family and dear friends – no white-picket fence, no cookie cutter life here. I reconnected with the fullness of my life. Instead of that one (narrow) path – I now see and value many paths.

So let go of the seamstress work – and find that pick-axe.

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Avril David is the author of Women in Power at the UN:  Stories to Inspire, a book featuring stories of resilience and reinvention in the face of adversity, the courage to speak and act in the name of what one believes in, and the complexities of balancing the myriad roles of being a woman, based on exclusive interviews with a diverse group of women in positions of senior leadership at the UN. To learn more about Avril, visit her over at her website.

To read other entries from the Fear, Exposed series, click here.

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