What is Good About it?

Amidst of all the uncertainties in life, when a bad thing happens, don’t forget to ask yourself “what is good about it?”

This is a piece of advice given to me by my mentor.

As an eldest daughter and a first-generation college graduate, I have been supporting my family financially since I graduated from my college. After 3 years of experience, I was leading a financial inclusion program at a social enterprise. I had a stable job with a high income; I was able to live together with my family; and I was able to support my family financially. I did have a dream to study abroad for my master’s degree, but I was not rushing or preparing to apply for my graduate school yet.

Unfortunately, in 2021, the military staged the coup in my country, Myanmar, and everything became hopeless in the country. The project I was leading was digital financial literacy program and moving towards the digital financial services. The military has control over the banking institutions in Myanmar and all the customers’ data were breached, resulting in the security risk to the customers who are involving in the revolution. People lost trust in financial institutions and even took their savings out of their bank accounts due to the potential bankruptcy risks. It became challenging to continue the program because people have security concerns to use financial services and the banking institutions lost credibility for their customers. Moreover, due to the double burden of Covid 19 and military coup, several companies in Myanmar are struggling just to survive. Many investors left the country and hundreds and thousands of people lost their jobs. I started having a concern about my own job security in the country. In addition to my career uncertainties, my well-being itself is a mess. I felt unsafe physically and emotionally. As someone who has witnessed directly or indirectly how the military killed people including children and youth, my safety is in danger as well. I could not stand near the window or on the balcony of my own house because I was worried about being shot. Even if I had to walk in the street or on the road, I constantly checked all the high buildings because I was concerned about the snipers and getting a head shot. I could not see my future either for my career or for my education or for my own safety – I felt stuck.

On the other hand, this feeling of being stuck pushed me to start implementing the dream of studying in a graduate school. I started looking into the scholarship programs for master’s degree. Still, I was helpless, and hopeless. I have been seeking professional help for my anxiety and the struggle I am experiencing. My mentor gave me an exercise to write down three things I am grateful for every day. In addition, he gave me one advice to ask myself “What is Good About it?” whenever something challenging (undesired or unwanted thing) happens in my life.

If there was no military coup and no other challenging conditions in the country, I may not decide to leave the country yet – my life trajectory would be different. The military coup, the uncertainties and security concerns in the country led me to decide to go for my long-lost dream of studying in graduate school and to take action to apply for scholarship. As a result, it has led me to receive the Fulbright scholarship and I was able to come to the US to study my MSW program at UNC Chapel Hill.

This whole experience helps me better understand my mentor’s words.

In life, things happen for a reason. Not all the things are good or bad. Everything has its own positive and negative sides. When we are in challenging situations, we tend to focus more on the negative sides of the situation.

Either good or bad emotions, we should have the ability to feel it; we should feel it; and we should allow ourselves to feel it because we are human. After that, we should try to see the positive side of the condition – even if there is only one that exist.