We Begin With Compromise

Then.

Desperation. When I began searching for a job in the Software industry, I got an internship with a consulting company (let's call it “Z-Corp Consulting”) at the beginning of 2021. I was nearing the last few months of my OPT (Optional Practical Training). To qualify for a STEM extension and consequently to remain in valid status in the US, I would have had to find a full-time job. I had two interview processes trudging along, one with Z-Corp Consulting, the company that I was interning at, and the other with Y-Investment Group (for name's sake), with the former in the latter stages of the process but having already done technical interviews for both. Z-Corp Consulting offered me a full-time position as a consultant and so I signed the offer and withdrew from the Y-Investment Group interview process.

In order to get its consultants even interviewing with clients for contract positions, the process involved adding five or more years of forged experience to seem qualified. I hesitated. Called my mom and my good friend. I listened, indecisive, tormented, but no one could ultimately make the decision for me. So, I closed my eyes and did just the kind of thing that may come to define a persona. The process involved adding experience with fictitious companies. I practiced talking about this out loud, first to the self then to my fellow consultants and supervisors. The technical aspect of the interview process I was confident even though I was inexperienced I was in delivering products to consumers albeit a small stint at Honeydew, a startup by my roommate's friend that I helped build and a position as an adjunct instructor/researcher at NYU.

Putting on a façade, I spoke of these experiences in my very first client interview with X Holding Plc. (actual name also concealed). The next day, they offered me a contract position and I was set to start in less than a week.

Months pass by, and what I did, pretending to be the person I was not to gain what I had, still disturbed my conscience. I had left my community in New York and relocated to Texas to try and be. I went to a new church filled with people who knew nil about me. I made new acquaintances and filled the time with soft-serve and basketball and running. One time while running I saw and dodged a sleeping cub, and, on another occasion, a slithering serpent and jogged as fast as I can towards nothingness in the Texas summer heat and against the cold dry winds of the winter months.

I couldn't write at all, neither prayed nor danced. I disliked my roommate's acquisition of a new cat, dreaded cleaning up after indulging in my newly discovered taste of expensive cooking, ignored long-time friends, and felt misunderstood by my own people.

I had something to share that I needed to get out of my gut - how I got my contract with my client in the first place. And so, I said a short prayer and divulged this information to my previous and former manager that Summer. Unfortunate, they said, that they made me do it. I did that. I resisted the urge to ask them how to reconcile myself. I opened myself up to the possibility of seeing, again. They thanked me for sharing.

I never know what the telling of that kind of story does to someone, what it did to them, to me, to anyone. My feet have calluses that have become stubbornly thicker. Thinner underbelly. I scrub them off more often now. Hair ends split and I comb it through. Pose. Selfie. I delete the photo. I don't keep photos anymore.

It's Fall and they are giving me a full-time offer and I hesitate. Why do I hesitate? Have I not been here before? I stall. Other interviews look promising but don't materialize. In the depth of the night, I sign the full-time offer.

Now.

Many forces coalesced, in thunderous fashion to bear fruit in what conspired. Some in the name of fitting in that I gave into. Others, such as seeking a comfort and pleasure that seems ever more fleeting. Fear of the future, not trusting in what I know to be true. I looked away, consciously. How many times can I do this before my heart grows cold and hard? I don't know. I'm afraid. Not everything can be fixed. Because something broke that can never heal without the scars. In this world that hails the imperfect sheep, I face head-on, my imperfections. At moments where I can transcend, I can't help but ogle at one who fly towards the sun without skipping a beat.

Tomorrow.

Where do I go from here? I have such experiences that have shaped my becoming - an eternal process that feeds from those before me and into the lives of those who might find such paths compelling. I may be driven by the enemy within to rationalize the want or the need of something that I think may give me rest; A relentless nefarious pursuit, that leads only to disillusionment on the other side when I see all the maddening imperfection of what I gain. Nothing is worth giving up who I am, no matter how scary that monstrous reality may seems present itself to be. For one may never know when giving in becomes a hard fork to losing oneself and never being able to trace the steps back to the self.