What it’s like to advise scholarship bondbreakers (or a reflection on giving)
[This post is on scholarship bondbreaking. If you are not from Singapore, there are some articles out there for context. However, even without context, this entry really is about gift gifting.]
This year, I’ve gotten an almost steady stream of requests for career advising chats. They are either about wanting to join a startup, about getting a job in social venture capital, or about scholarship bondbreaking. This last category particularly gets to me. It is hard for me to describe the immense empathy I feel when someone comes to me and wants bondbreaking advice. It’s been 5 1/2 years since I broke my bond, and I have gone from being bitter and vindictive towards the scholarship system to being relatively agnostic on what I think scholars should do. But I still know what it’s like. How stifling, isolating, confusing, and self-denying it feels.
A few months ago, I started to get burned out by the chats. It was emotionally draining. I had one conversation where I knew I was going through the motions. I ask a bunch of questions, listen, tell a bunch of stories, toss out a few ways to adjust the person’s perspective. It comes easily to me now. I’ve done it enough to know what buttons to push. But I didn’t feel good about the conversation at the end of it. At the time, I blamed the person, not aloud but in my head. We just didn’t click, I told myself. This is not so fun anymore, maybe I should stop.
In retrospect, I was struggling with feeling used, not by this person in particular, but I felt that it was in some way unfair that I felt obligated to do this. There are lots of other bondbreakers out there. There are a whole bunch that I talked to! Why does no one else do this. Why am I saddled with this obligation, this empathy. I didn’t feel like doing it anymore. There are tons of other things I should make time for. But I felt like I had to keep doing it because I would feel too guilty otherwise.
I stopped for awhile. I was still fielding the requests for the other chats - for social VC at that point - but it’s not the same. Those chats are mostly about delivering information. But those people are not lost. Ok, that’s not true. Fairly often, they are lost. But I don’t know how to help them, I mean really help them.
Earlier this week, I attended a lecture about giving. We have all heard that “it is better to give than to receive.” But what does that mean. And who really buys that anyway. Then the speaker explained the various kinds of giving. The first one was the gift of wealth. Giving up money, personal resources in order that someone else may benefit.
The second one is the one that got to me: the gift of courage. Being able to say the right thing at the right time to someone, so that they may go forth with courage.
Ahh.
I wasn’t thinking about the gifts I had given in the form of the chats. I was thinking about the fact that I had this gift to give. The gift - of the ability to give courage - was mine. And that’s where it all made sense. It is better to give, wholeheartedly and with good intent, than it is to receive.
I can tell you that when I do these chats wholeheartedly, I gain tremendously. It is an enormous privilege to hear someone’s real story, to have them open up and share their fears, their vulnerabilities, to pour out things that they have had to keep secret for fear of being judged unfavorably or dismissed. And then to see them figure it out. To imagine the future with hope. To see them face the hard questions, to reflect and stall and flounder and sometimes panic, to be able to see them do the essential work of figuring out what makes them happy. The search for fulfillment. I know I cannot get them there - that is their work, not mine - but I get to be a part of it. That kind of connection with another human being - there is nothing else quite like it.
The gift is mine to give.
The amazing thing is that the only thing I can do with this gift is give. I cannot keep it for myself. It is of benefit to anyone only when I give it away.
I never asked to be able to do this bondbreaking advising thing. I’m not formally trained in any way to do this. The main way I know that something is working is that I get referrals. A steady stream of referrals from friends and friends of friends. And repeat customers. And emails from strangers who find these posts.
I know that it is an incredible gift that I had the means to break my bond. That was the original gift. I now also know that it is a gift, not a burden, that unhappy scholars come to me and that I can help them. It doesn’t matter if anyone else can do this. I should do this. It is my gift that I can do this.
The most recent chat I had, just 2 days ago, I went into it wholeheartedly. Just give, I told myself. Just give. And I felt better about this work, this bizarre thing I do, than I have in a long time. I felt like I got more out of the conversation than the person did. And I want to give more.
So there are 2 things to come out of this:
1) I’m going to write a series of blog posts about the things that I discuss in these bondbreaking chats. So all of you who search for queries like “break bond scholarship” and “singapore scholars dissatisfied with scholarship” (real queries to this site) will have a resource.
2) I am going to set up a simple bondbreaking advising service, so that any scholar who wants a bondbreaking chat can ping me for one. You don’t have to know me, or know someone who knows me (the current system). You just email me. You may have to wait awhile depending on my schedule, but I will find time. If you are local, we can meet in person. If you live elsewhere, we can Skype.
There will be no charge. In exchange, I ask that you perform an act of kindness to pay it forward. Pay it forward in whatever way you feel is right. Pay for coffee for a stranger, be kind to someone having a bad day, make a donation. Whatever you feel is yours to give. And then write and tell me about it.
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I wish you very good gifts for 2012. Happy new year.
