How is it July already? How did May and June just fly by? It was January yesterday. And now here we are, closer to the year 2025 than we are to 2023.
There is so much incoming in the next six months – I can feel it in my bones. Both on a personal front and for the world too (elections, olympics, you know what I mean). We as a collective have gotten good at staying in limbo a while after things go down and keeping our heads above water.
Towards the end of last month, I was chatting with a mentor who happened to use the word ‘exposure’. They said, ‘Your exposure to things will help you determine what you want to do or don’t want to do’.
Over the last seven years, I have been ‘exposed’ to a zillion new ‘somethings’. Ideas, places, people, scents, sounds, tastes – experiences. And they have shaped me. Learning a new language, moving to a new city on the other side of the world, choosing to live alone halfway through grad school, traveling in an unknown country, taking solo trips, rediscovering childhood hobbies, working on my health - physical and mental. These are just some examples of what the last four years have looked like for me.
Being exposed to all of these experiences has changed me in ways I could not have imagined or planned for. Some time halfway through undergrad, something changed in me and I wanted to experience more. I discovered a side of me that wanted to do more, be more. I embraced the side of me that wanted to do everything, try everything. Being surrounded by like-minded and encouraging individuals then followed naturally and since has only continued to fuel that desire to try new experiences out.
Coming back to the present time, July 2024, recently on some self reflection, I noticed a shift in my mindset. Despite continuing to advocate for exposure, I was allowing myself to get sucked into believing in linear progression. For my career that meant, thinking about how after X years I should have climbed Z rungs of the corporate ladder.
That years of experience = seniority. And that way of thinking had also started applying to how I approach real life i.e. age = what I should have accomplished/ where I should be in life.
(Note - I would love to blame pop culture & society but we’re skipping that today cause I am feeling feisty and would like to believe I am in control of my own beliefs and ideas.)
2020 Samruddhi would laugh at that idea. 2020 Samruddhi believed in the concept of exposure. She experienced exposure.
In my college essay, I quoted Malcolm Gladwell -
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Outliers”, has beautifully drawn an analogy between the ecology of an organism and how nothing in life is sudden but a series of situations and opportunities leading up to that very moment.Malcolm talks about exposure here. He is highlighting how the situations that we face, the environment we are ‘exposed’ to is key in shaping who we are, what we believe and what we choose to become.
Malcolm talks about The Beatles and how their success can be attributed to the variety of their early performance experiences. Before they became famous, the band spent a significant amount of time in Hamburg, Germany, playing in clubs for hours on end. This intense period of performing in diverse settings allowed them to hone their skills, experiment with different musical styles, and build a tight-knit group dynamic. The extensive variety of performance experiences they gained in Hamburg was crucial to their later success.
I draw parallels to my own life. My mom loved writing, she instilled that in my sister who then shared it with me. Dancing, singing, art – being exposed to this early on in life has shaped my inclination towards them.
Currently, I am focused on exposing myself to all that comes my way. Saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity, saying ‘yes’ to every plan, every task, has allowed me to experience a lot in a fairly short span of time. The exposure in turn has enabled me to learn new skills, build new habits, carry myself differently and as the mentor had rightly said, taught me what I do and do not like.
Years of experience simply does not equate to the number of experiences you end up having. Yes, you can have numerous experiences over a course of time (that’s how time works) but you can also speed up that process by exposing yourself to adjacent situations. Yet, you can be living in the same city until you are 22 and only know so much. Then the moment you land in a new city, a new country, everything changes and you start to know much more. You change, you adapt, you grow. Variety is what breeds adaptability, growth and further opportunities.
On the flip side, I am sure there are people who find calm and beauty in the opposite. In the non-exposure. And that’s fine. I acknowledge it, I appreciate it and I respect it.
Having had been on the other side though, I will end this one by quoting Sheryl Sandberg -
"If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on."
