On Refusing to "Grow Up"
What Happens When Systems Exhaust Us
Growing up, many of us are cautiously warned (and sometimes aggressively spooked) into believing that ideas don’t pay the bills, that a successful life is built on material wealth, stable income, and a nuclear family. Soon enough, some of us come to accept this reality, others make some compromises and negotiations they can justify to themselves, and some others relentlessly refuse to compromise. During my time in college, I took a course with my mentor and incredible anthropologist, Paul Mullins. In class, he said something that was incredibly formative: “Simply being sad or angry is not a political response, you have to do something about it.” I remember hurriedly writing it down because it reminded me why I became an anthropologist: to understand the social and political conditions that people find themselves in and to do something about it. Much like others, I too was surrounded by students who shared a commitment to “contribute to society,” “create social impact,” and “make the world a better place.” Most of us were in our early 20s, carried by vibrant energy and driven by a singular desire to steadfastly live into our values and make our big ideas a reality.
A few years later, we’re in companies and graduate programs that loudly profess they’re “disruptors” and are committed to positive change. Words like social impact, equity-oriented, and mission-driven are floating in the air we breathe. After a brief period of euphoria, we slowly begin to see the inconsistencies, misalignment, and rapidly widening chasm between the values organizations and institutions espouse and what they actually practice. We start talking about it with fellow cohort members and co-workers to confirm if this is “standard practice” or if they, too, are disappointed, surprised, and confused about the growing chasm that few people seem to acknowledge.
As we get more and more socialized into these institutions and organizations, we experience a desire to push back, question, and challenge. In this process, we learn the hidden rules of organizations and academia: write statements and memos expressing dissent (but make sure the Communications and HR teams have approved it), protest (but not during sprint weeks or client meetings), disrupt (but not too much, else you’ll be perceived as a “troublemaker” and won’t be promoted into leadership roles), create positive change (but with grantees and external partners, don’t challenge internal organizational dynamics), and organize a sit-in protest in front of the office (never mind, we’ll fire you). Simultaneously, the same organizations are hiring smart and talented ethicists, DEI researchers, social impact directors, and even union leaders to evaluate the organization’s impact and build strategies to strengthen it. What starts as confusion steadily transforms into disillusionment and then a kind of clarity emerges from radically seeing the chasm for what it is in real time.
Now, what do we do about it? What happens to those with big ideas and strong values who repeatedly brush against the sharp contours of the institutions and structures we live in? What happens to those who have earnestly attempted and failed to shapeshift themselves to fit into the mold of existing infrastructures? What happens to those who don’t (or can’t) compromise?
In simpler terms, what happens when institutions and systems exhaust us?
Not the kind of exhaustion that you can recover from after a long night’s rest or a 2 week vacation, but the kind of existential exhaustion that sits deep within your body because you are simply tired of once again seeing the dissonance between values and praxis in politics, organizations, interpersonal relationships, and within ourselves. The exhaustion that culminates into dread, acceptance, and a loud recognition of the practical realities of life. We have bills to pay. Rent is due. We need to pick medication next week. So, we continue to do what needs to be done or sardonically remark to ourselves “Work will set us free” like my brother does. Yet, the existential exhaustion grows and shapeshifts within us. The restlessness may subside momentarily but the dissatisfaction continues to gnaw at you everyday.
Perhaps, hidden underneath these feelings is a primal and more central question: Is idealism rendered entirely irrelevant in our current institutions, organizations, and systems?
Capitalism promotes value-based arguments about the kind of work and nature of output that are considered “valuable” and therefore worthy of monetary compensation. For example, if you are working at a large foundation that is determining what social issues to invest in, you will often find yourself making decks for investors explaining the business case for investing in youth mental health programs or environmental protection. You may have joined the organization with a desire to use your skills to work on specific social issues you really care about or perhaps you resonated with the community based approach of the organization or you admire the people working at the organization. Soon enough, you’re caught in a storm of perfecting corporate-speak, navigating bureaucracy, learning the invisible rules of an organization, performing busyness, and over complying with policies. This is not a zero-sum game argument suggesting values-aligned work and pragmatism cannot co-exist but instead a consideration of what really matters.
You’ll start to notice that principles are traded for practicality, relationality is traded for efficiency, diversity is traded for optics, people are traded for profits, and ethical approaches are traded for feasibility and scalability. An ideal employee must learn to accept the trade-offs and confront the disappointment in a lack of praxis. In this game of capitalism, if you want to be a player, you learn the rules and alienate yourself from idealism and principles. As you get older, idealism becomes increasingly associated with naivete, and those who are idealistic are often written off as people who haven’t “grown up yet” or confronted reality.
A couple more years later, hope is traded for jadedness and apathy. A sense of mundanity and familiarity sets in. We pride ourselves on being practical and rational. We tell ourselves that the only sustainable way to live is to grow out of idealism, readjust expectations, and accept disappointment. This is not entirely false because the best way to navigate a system that is inherently flawed is to closely study its mechanics, processes, and metrics. By understanding how a system works, you become a more competent and savvy player who can gamify the system to achieve your desired outcome or opt out of the game entirely. The very notion of a game suggests a logic of scarcity and a rigid winner/loser binary which is precisely how we’re socially trained to think.
However, what happens to the part of you that is deeply disturbed by this reality and still maintains hope? What happens to the part of you that yearns for something different, something real, something more human? What happens to the part of you that refuses to let imagination fade? More importantly, is it even possible to be both principled and pragmatic?
I am not quite sure how to respond to these questions. I know there is no straightforward resolution or finality, and I suspect this is a theme that I’ll repeatedly return to. I find myself writing this piece with a genuine sense of curiosity and guarded optimism. Surely, there have to be other ways.
We often see idealism or principles as limiting forces, as something that will get in our way as we navigate this big and uncertain world. I’ve worked incredibly hard to become pragmatic and readjust expectations. Yet, I don’t want to lose the ability to wonder or hope. I’ve learned that being hopeful or living into your principles (to the best of your abilities) is not naive or silly.
A few weeks ago my dearest friend Nethra and I were having a long meandering discussion about the messiness and frustration of living by our values in all parts of our lives. At one point she paused and reminded me of a line I repeatedly say especially when I’m frustrated: Why am I the only one dying on this hill?! It made me laugh, partly because I hadn’t realized I said it so frequently that it was etched in Nethra’s memory. Her comment held the deep warmth of someone who saw me with incredible precision and also felt the elaborately specific frustration of being someone who genuinely cares and is trying to do the right thing. Many of us carry this weight and a sense of transgressive curiosity, leaving us wondering: What is possible if I uncompromisingly live into my values?
Instead of dying on the hill of a lack of praxis, I want to explore what becomes possible when we are not alienated from our principles. Being principled and idealistic is a choice and can be a strategic one, at that. It can be a way to remain grounded and return to your center amidst the many chaotic forces of life. It can be a compass to assess if something is truly aligned with you or not. To extend it even further, it can be a portal through which a sense of possibility emerges and enables you to live a life that is meaningfully aligned with who you are.
I don’t have a profound resolution but I do have an anecdote that I found myself repeatedly returning to while writing this piece. A few years ago, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Middle East with low-wage South Asian migrant workers working in construction camps. At the time, I possessed the unbridled hope and idealism of a graduate student who wanted to make concrete impact in the world. Over the last few years, my sense of hope has mellowed and become grounded in pragmatism but the wonder still remains, resisting complete disillusionment.
During fieldwork, I spoke to a migrant worker who had been working as a machine operator for 16 years. In response to my question about how he navigates the deeply extractive and precarious working conditions, he said: “Look, I don’t have money, and I don’t know when I’ll return home or how much longer I’ll have to work here. I don’t have most things that other people do but I have my principles and a family back home.” At the time, his comments appeared (to me) sincere but slightly indifferent, and I wondered if he had radically accepted his circumstances or possessed a sliver of hope. I now realize that perhaps he had something even more powerful than hope: a precise clarity of what really mattered to him, his principles and family.