go where you’re valued

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on productivity, health and tech, and drop unique opportunities in the space right to your inbox daily. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in! 💌 

btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: go where you’re valued ⭐️ 

people, institutions, programs and anything that goes the extra mile for you will always outweigh any prestige status you have to claw your way up to for a speck of validation.

go where you’re valued.

yes, this is pretty timely and applicable to college commitment season, but i’ve already made a post detailing that earlier. going where you’re valued applies to relationships, career, education — pretty much everything in your life. 🗒️ 

ultimately, the culture, people, and environment will trump any base-level prestige a glorified friend group, selective undergrad program or internship will give you. wherever you’re valued, people will think of you when opportunities come up. they’ll be the ones coming up with a birthday surprise. they’ll support you in ways you might not even think you’ll need.

stop pining after a picture-perfect clique, and open yourself up to the world. 🌎️ recognize those that value and think of you. you mean something, and should surround yourself around people that know it too.

i still remember one of the defining moments that led me to choosing morehead-cain and unc-chapel hill for my undergrad education. it was the night before my flight to chapel hill for discovery weekend, a weekend of activities / experiences for mc scholarship recipients. adhering to canadian stereotypes, i got a notification that my flight would be delayed a few hours because of a snowstorm.

okay, no biggie. i’ll miss the campus tour, but i’ll still make it for the duke vs. unc basketball watch party. i wake up the next morning and i’m about to leave the front door when another notification lets me know that the flight is cancelled due to weather.

i love canada. 😇 i sit there for 10 minutes trying to see if there was anything i could do to get a different flight. luckily, my flight got rebooked to a direct one in 2 hours.

2 hours? shit.

we pile into the car and step on the gas. hard. 15 minutes into the half-hour drive, that flight gets cancelled too. 😭 i look through flights frantically, abandoning the travel agency morehead-cain had me book through. my eyes land on a $2,000 flight scheduled to take-off in 2 hours. there was no way i was going to drop $2k out of pocket on a flight though.

it was a long shot, but i knew there was still a chance with the culture and kindness i had already experienced with morehead-cain’s staff: i called the scholarship president’s personal phone number, and asked if he would be able to cover this flight’s costs as i was still on-route to the airport. he said yes, the flight was immediately booked, and i made it to unc-chapel hill in time for the watch party.

despite not even being a committed scholar, i was shown so much consideration and hospitality. i felt so valued, and that’s where i’m going after being shown this countless times afterwards as well. 💗 

go where you’re celebrated, not tolerated.

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