Agency as a Belonging Practice

The year?

Seems like a neanderthal one, with the current speed of the world we live in.

That year, as it were, I had graduated from college, completed the mandatory experiential pharmacy job rotation and national paramilitary service. But I still did not quite feel ready for the world and what it had to offer me.

So there I was, deciding if I wanted to go through with the plan —the grand plan to apply for graduate school in the US.

Ambivalence was a daily companion, a state of mind further clouded by a fog of indecision. This meant that I was doing less or more nothing to carry out or implement the supposed grand plan. And yet, I was hoping that by some form of magical thinking, I would be teleported into grad school.

The thing about ambivalence, if left unresolved, it eventually leaves you fragmented. It was in this state of "To go or not to go" that I got a life changing phone call. From none other than my brother.

Now, you have to understand that I was the runt of my mother's litter. Maybe not in size but in rights and privileges. So, I grew up with a heightened sense of justice and why being the youngest didn't mean I had to go last. (Things only the youngest child/children) can think up.

My brother who emigrated 5 years prior called me and asked me what I was doing and I said nothing. He asked about work and I replied that I was yet to get serious about looking because I planned to go to grad school.

I remember him asking me what kind of utopian world I was living in where I was waiting for one of two neat options to happen in some sort of linear sequence.

"Otito, what if graduate school doesn't happen immediately, are you simply going to be sitting and resting on your oars?" "You have no control over whether you get the admission or not, so you can't place all your bets on that one outcome" Go, look for work, do something, anything, explore, experiment and make money. You can't sit at home and expect a handout from us in diaspora and make excuses about not finding a job. You have to take responsibility"

Boy, was he right! But, was I mad at him or what?

I was so mad at him, because he was right. As much my feisty younger-sister self did not want to acquiesce, I also knew he was right. By basically reminding me that I had the agency to act or move in one direction or another, and that the two outcomes did not have to be mutually exclusive, my brother helped move me out of ambivalence. Even if I felt it was a not-so-gentle movement.

So, I woke up (figuratively), dusted my sleeves and got to work, applying for grad school and looking for work at the same time.

My network of friends and their second degree connections gave me information about when the next round of situational job tests for a company of choice was coming up. I went on and got that job after multiple rounds of interviews.

Grad school came through, three long years after.

I wonder, if I didn't get that kick in the behind agency inducing call. Who knows?

To use our agency is to take action on our own behalf. The practice of this brings so much centering and confidence. As confidence increases, belonging is heightened, for us and those we come in contact with.