when rickets
we’re told that dreams are important
we’re told to work hard to achieve those
dreams
we’re told that if we work really really
really hard and achieve our dreams then
one day our life will be amazing success
will be ours and everything will be
blissful when I was a little girl I had
a lot of people like that around me who
told me to dream and I did my dream as a
little girl was to go to college I know
a lot of people as kids dream of that
but I was in a slightly more precarious
situation you see I come from a very
culturally conservative family in
Pakistan where girls are generally not
allowed to go to college or pursue a
professional career of course not all
families in Pakistan are like that and I
can only speak to my own personal
experience with my family and even my
own family wasn’t some vicious evil cult
that kept women locked inside the house
never letting us see the Sun it’s just
that my family prioritized certain
things over others and women’s education
just didn’t make the cut as girls we
went to school we graduated we married
the man our parents had picked out for
us he moved to his house we had his kids
of course we had to look pretty the
whole time and then we continued the
cycle we didn’t question the cycle
because we weren’t allowed to when I was
a little girl I knew I wasn’t going to
end up like those people I was always a
good student and I wasn’t going to let
some man get in the way of my dreams and
especially not one that I didn’t get to
pick so fast-forward senior year of high
school I applied to New York
University’s Abu Dhabi campus but in
secret no one but my college counselors
knew as fate would have it I got
accepted to candidate weekend
the university’s two-day interview
process for which they fly you into the
UAE on an all-expenses-paid trip my
secret had to become not so secret
I couldn’t just leave the country for
two days without letting anyone know
frankly I wasn’t even allowed to go to
the corner store to get shampoo for
myself on my own I still remember the
day I found out I was at my
grandfather’s house
my dad was away on a business trip and
for some odd reason my cousin had taken
my cell phone with her on a school trip
because hers wasn’t working so when my
school tried to call me to congratulate
me about the interview they couldn’t get
through they called my mom instead that
was the first time my mom had heard
about this
needless to say my mother was not
pleased that day had its fair share of
arguments and tears and the first urge
on my parents behalf was to stop me from
going because they were angry they were
angry that I had applied but then this
anger turned into exasperation at what I
had done and how they would have to
explain this to the family and so here’s
where I swept in and told them that they
should just think of this whole thing as
an all-expenses-paid trip that their
daughter was taking because an interview
didn’t equate acceptance and so they let
me go and I got accepted into the
University and lo and behold I also had
a scholarship which meant that I didn’t
actually need my parents assistance to
go to university but their permission
was both culturally required and
personally really important to me and so
began the next nine fun months of trying
to convince my parents to let me go to
college my parents weren’t actually
opposed to letting me go to college they
would have let me study at a local
institution where they had the
opportunity to pull me out in case they
found a suitable man but me being away
for four years meant that I was off the
marriage market for four years and by
the time I returned as a 22 year old
with a college degree I wouldn’t be
anyone’s first pick for daughter-in-law
because everyone knows that a 22 woman’s
uterus is shrivel and die they’re no
longer able to have kids and obviously
they can’t fulfill the one job they have
as good wives or maybe that’s something
that
hello in my country I don’t know so para
was trying to convince my parents and in
a family like fine where we’re not
actually big on conversation everything
was done through subtle and
not-so-subtle hints being dropped so my
parents often talked about how a woman
at 22 with a degree had absolutely no
chances of getting married to a good man
but I actually didn’t know I was going
to come to college until two weeks
before my flight was meant to take off
that was when my parents offered to take
me on a shopping trip to buy clothes for
college their way of saying yes in
retrospect my parents weren’t trying to
deviously hold me back from something
that was really important to me it’s
just that they were genuinely scared and
conflicted because me getting an
education meant that I wouldn’t be able
to achieve the ultimate marker of
success in my society which was marriage
but of course me at the time wasn’t
thinking about any of this I was excited
ecstatic overwhelmed happy I was going
to go to college and I was going to do
it on my own terms I didn’t need
anyone’s money
I do need anyone’s help and I was at the
cusp of my education my life from here
on out would surely be success
personified but boy was I wrong you see
when all those people were telling me
about the importance of my dream about
the importance of achieving it they had
forgot to leave they left something out
of the equation that was very very
important and that was what happens
after so here’s what happened to me I
came to college freshman year all
bright-eyed it was very happy I unpacked
my bags went to orientation and that was
when something just seemed horribly
wrong it felt like my body was
physically rejecting the experience that
I had yearned for my whole life at the
time I would get severe chest pains for
which I had to be hospitalized several
times I had heart palpitations doing
I couldn’t sleep I began to question my
identity I began to feel ashamed of
myself I would often think to myself
that I shouldn’t be here I don’t deserve
to be here I should be at home married
complacent quiet like all the other good
girls when it really hit me about how
bad it had gotten was when one of my
best friends asked me a very very simple
question he asked me where I was from
I said Pakistan of course I was born
there I lived there my whole life and it
had come up before so I was surprised
with the question but then he told me
that I didn’t sound like any of the
other Pakistanis I didn’t dress like
them I didn’t go to any of the events
the cultural events that were planned
for Pakistanis and that’s when it really
hit me about how much I was trying to
change my identity I was trying to strip
away everything that was Pakistani about
me in exchange for something else
at the time my my friends very kindly
instructed me to get a professional
mental health care which I did and I was
diagnosed with anxiety which was the
cause of the chest pains the
palpitations and the thought spirals
about my identity changing how I looked
and sounded was the coping mechanism
that my brain chose unfortunately
another side effect of the anxiety was
that it a groove ated my psoriasis and
autoimmune skin disease that I’d had
since age 14 which then morphed into
psoriatic arthritis which put me in
chronic pain in my right foot which I
have to this day but this day is three
years later this day is three years
since I achieved my dream and came to
college I still get the chest pain
sometimes my foot hurts all the time I
can’t walk long distances and I am often
judged for taking the elevator up one
flight but I did all this because I
believed in what I dreamt of I believed
in my dream and now would be an amazing
point for me to say I would do it all
over again but the truth is that I’m
going to have to do it all over again I
don’t have a choice
the girls that wanted to go to
university to go to college to become
independent wants to do other things now
she wants to go to graduate school she
wants to get a job but the problem with
those things is that there’s challenges
the expectation is that I will return
home my parents will work super super
super hard to find a guy who will marry
someone like me at 22 with a college
degree and then will finally be able to
move on from this her for college
business but what is that got to do with
any of you in the audience today what
why do my experiences matter what’s the
link between my experiences and your
aspirations I think for starters we can
all agree that each and every one of us
has had a dream at some point or has a
dream it could be anything really it
could be that job interview that
publication the guy in the girl whatever
but the truth is that we as a society
glamorize and glorified the attainment
of that one singular dream we talk about
how life will be blissful once we have
it we tell people to work really really
really hard towards their goals and we
tell them that that’s the end that’s the
goal that’s the end point but in reality
our dreams and their achievement is only
the beginning it’s almost
inconsequential in the broader context
of your life you see dreams are
important don’t get me wrong it’s
important to have dreams it’s important
to dream big it’s important to work
really hard to achieve those dreams but
what’s equally important is what comes
after the problem of achieving your
dream is that it is not the end there’s
always something else it is not a
singularity it is a cycle and this cycle
has challenges not just in the beginning
in the middle in the end but also after
and after and after and after because it
never ends there there’s always
something else
to achieve and of course there’s the
lucky few amongst us that have a dream
achieve it and then really life is
rainbows and unicorns after
but for the rest of us our dreams have
consequences and those consequences are
amazing and sometimes not so amazing and
we need to talk about embracing both
sides that’s what I’m trying to do with
myself in my dreams and I think you
should too thank you [Applause]
we’re told that dreams are important
we’re told to work hard to achieve those
dreams
we’re told that if we work really really
really hard and achieve our dreams then
one day our life will be amazing success
will be ours and everything will be
blissful when I was a little girl I had
a lot of people like that around me who
told me to dream and I did my dream as a
little girl was to go to college I know
a lot of people as kids dream of that
but I was in a slightly more precarious
situation you see I come from a very
culturally conservative family in
Pakistan where girls are generally not
allowed to go to college or pursue a
professional career of course not all
families in Pakistan are like that and I
can only speak to my own personal
experience with my family and even my
own family wasn’t some vicious evil cult
that kept women locked inside the house
never letting us see the Sun it’s just
that my family prioritized certain
things over others and women’s education
just didn’t make the cut as girls we
went to school we graduated we married
the man our parents had picked out for
us he moved to his house we had his kids
of course we had to look pretty the
whole time and then we continued the
cycle we didn’t question the cycle
because we weren’t allowed to when I was
a little girl I knew I wasn’t going to
end up like those people I was always a
good student and I wasn’t going to let
some man get in the way of my dreams and
especially not one that I didn’t get to
pick so fast-forward senior year of high
school I applied to New York
University’s Abu Dhabi campus but in
secret no one but my college counselors
knew as fate would have it I got
accepted to candidate weekend
the university’s two-day interview
process for which they fly you into the
UAE on an all-expenses-paid trip my
secret had to become not so secret
I couldn’t just leave the country for
two days without letting anyone know
frankly I wasn’t even allowed to go to
the corner store to get shampoo for
myself on my own I still remember the
day I found out I was at my
grandfather’s house
my dad was away on a business trip and
for some odd reason my cousin had taken
my cell phone with her on a school trip
because hers wasn’t working so when my
school tried to call me to congratulate
me about the interview they couldn’t get
through they called my mom instead that
was the first time my mom had heard
about this
needless to say my mother was not
pleased that day had its fair share of
arguments and tears and the first urge
on my parents behalf was to stop me from
going because they were angry they were
angry that I had applied but then this
anger turned into exasperation at what I
had done and how they would have to
explain this to the family and so here’s
where I swept in and told them that they
should just think of this whole thing as
an all-expenses-paid trip that their
daughter was taking because an interview
didn’t equate acceptance and so they let
me go and I got accepted into the
University and lo and behold I also had
a scholarship which meant that I didn’t
actually need my parents assistance to
go to university but their permission
was both culturally required and
personally really important to me and so
began the next nine fun months of trying
to convince my parents to let me go to
college my parents weren’t actually
opposed to letting me go to college they
would have let me study at a local
institution where they had the
opportunity to pull me out in case they
found a suitable man but me being away
for four years meant that I was off the
marriage market for four years and by
the time I returned as a 22 year old
with a college degree I wouldn’t be
anyone’s first pick for daughter-in-law
because everyone knows that a 22 woman’s
uterus is shrivel and die they’re no
longer able to have kids and obviously
they can’t fulfill the one job they have
as good wives or maybe that’s something
that
hello in my country I don’t know so para
was trying to convince my parents and in
a family like fine where we’re not
actually big on conversation everything
was done through subtle and
not-so-subtle hints being dropped so my
parents often talked about how a woman
at 22 with a degree had absolutely no
chances of getting married to a good man
but I actually didn’t know I was going
to come to college until two weeks
before my flight was meant to take off
that was when my parents offered to take
me on a shopping trip to buy clothes for
college their way of saying yes in
retrospect my parents weren’t trying to
deviously hold me back from something
that was really important to me it’s
just that they were genuinely scared and
conflicted because me getting an
education meant that I wouldn’t be able
to achieve the ultimate marker of
success in my society which was marriage
but of course me at the time wasn’t
thinking about any of this I was excited
ecstatic overwhelmed happy I was going
to go to college and I was going to do
it on my own terms I didn’t need
anyone’s money
I do need anyone’s help and I was at the
cusp of my education my life from here
on out would surely be success
personified but boy was I wrong you see
when all those people were telling me
about the importance of my dream about
the importance of achieving it they had
forgot to leave they left something out
of the equation that was very very
important and that was what happens
after so here’s what happened to me I
came to college freshman year all
bright-eyed it was very happy I unpacked
my bags went to orientation and that was
when something just seemed horribly
wrong it felt like my body was
physically rejecting the experience that
I had yearned for my whole life at the
time I would get severe chest pains for
which I had to be hospitalized several
times I had heart palpitations doing
I couldn’t sleep I began to question my
identity I began to feel ashamed of
myself I would often think to myself
that I shouldn’t be here I don’t deserve
to be here I should be at home married
complacent quiet like all the other good
girls when it really hit me about how
bad it had gotten was when one of my
best friends asked me a very very simple
question he asked me where I was from
I said Pakistan of course I was born
there I lived there my whole life and it
had come up before so I was surprised
with the question but then he told me
that I didn’t sound like any of the
other Pakistanis I didn’t dress like
them I didn’t go to any of the events
the cultural events that were planned
for Pakistanis and that’s when it really
hit me about how much I was trying to
change my identity I was trying to strip
away everything that was Pakistani about
me in exchange for something else
at the time my my friends very kindly
instructed me to get a professional
mental health care which I did and I was
diagnosed with anxiety which was the
cause of the chest pains the
palpitations and the thought spirals
about my identity changing how I looked
and sounded was the coping mechanism
that my brain chose unfortunately
another side effect of the anxiety was
that it a groove ated my psoriasis and
autoimmune skin disease that I’d had
since age 14 which then morphed into
psoriatic arthritis which put me in
chronic pain in my right foot which I
have to this day but this day is three
years later this day is three years
since I achieved my dream and came to
college I still get the chest pain
sometimes my foot hurts all the time I
can’t walk long distances and I am often
judged for taking the elevator up one
flight but I did all this because I
believed in what I dreamt of I believed
in my dream and now would be an amazing
point for me to say I would do it all
over again but the truth is that I’m
going to have to do it all over again I
don’t have a choice
the girls that wanted to go to
university to go to college to become
independent wants to do other things now
she wants to go to graduate school she
wants to get a job but the problem with
those things is that there’s challenges
the expectation is that I will return
home my parents will work super super
super hard to find a guy who will marry
someone like me at 22 with a college
degree and then will finally be able to
move on from this her for college
business but what is that got to do with
any of you in the audience today what
why do my experiences matter what’s the
link between my experiences and your
aspirations I think for starters we can
all agree that each and every one of us
has had a dream at some point or has a
dream it could be anything really it
could be that job interview that
publication the guy in the girl whatever
but the truth is that we as a society
glamorize and glorified the attainment
of that one singular dream we talk about
how life will be blissful once we have
it we tell people to work really really
really hard towards their goals and we
tell them that that’s the end that’s the
goal that’s the end point but in reality
our dreams and their achievement is only
the beginning it’s almost
inconsequential in the broader context
of your life you see dreams are
important don’t get me wrong it’s
important to have dreams it’s important
to dream big it’s important to work
really hard to achieve those dreams but
what’s equally important is what comes
after the problem of achieving your
dream is that it is not the end there’s
always something else it is not a
singularity it is a cycle and this cycle
has challenges not just in the beginning
in the middle in the end but also after
and after and after and after because it
never ends there there’s always
something else
to achieve and of course there’s the
lucky few amongst us that have a dream
achieve it and then really life is
rainbows and unicorns after
but for the rest of us our dreams have
consequences and those consequences are
amazing and sometimes not so amazing and
we need to talk about embracing both
sides that’s what I’m trying to do with
myself in my dreams and I think you
should too thank you [Applause]
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