Reflections on 30

Last month I turned 30. People asked me how I felt but I hadn’t processed it then so I was unsurprisingly nonchalant. The reality was that life was going at 2x speed — my preferred speed — and I didn’t have time to reflect. Now sitting on an 18 hr flight to Singapore (in true Raisa fashion), I’m finally forced to reflect on the past 30 years and the highs and lows that came with it. Here are my 5 top reflections:

1. I resented my upbringing but I’m thankful for it.

   I grew up in the NYC projects, but you won’t catch me rapping about it. When you’re a child feeling psychologically and physically unsafe on a daily basis, you are bound to develop a hunger that will fuel the rest of your life’s ambitions (whether you actually make something from that is another story). I couldn’t tell what was worse: the piss in the elevator (and questioning whether it was human or dog), having the piss-filled elevator break so you had to walk down some very shady stairs, the roach infestation, the speed walking from the entry of the complex to your unit, fireworks vs gunshots, aggressive pit bulls, or the embarrassment when you’re dropped off by the school bus (so you ask to be dropped off 2 blocks from home). Yet without the drive to get as far away from that as I can, I wouldn’t be on my flight to Singapore. So thank you Astoria Housing for giving me grit, resilience, and of course, attitude.

2. Being my biggest advocate led to becoming a self made millionaire before 30.

   On the uber to JFK, my Pakistani uber driver asked me if I knew what my name meant.

   “Yes, it means female boss/female leader.”

   “Yes, but also in Urdu, rais means a wealthy person, so raisa is a wealthy female” he added.

   I smiled and thought about reflection #1 before saying “I believe that a name bears a lot of significance to the person”.

   I had my first job at 14, and worked retail through high school and college. I managed college with financial aid, scholarships, and multiple jobs and internships, graduating with 0 debt. This required discipline during what would typically be your most reckless years: I was at the financial aid office weekly, pinning down posters of scholarship applications and shooting my shot. I didn’t just wait for someone to hand me a scholarship. I skipped campus parties to became a RA for free room and board. Majoring in finance was very deliberate — I needed a high paying job with minimum upfront investment. College was mostly a boring blur, but the 0 debt put me a step ahead of my peers.

   When I joined JP Morgan, a colleague and I were jointly asked which of two projects we wanted to work on. Immediately my hand went up for the most challenging/rewarding project, and my shy colleague suggested she’d be open to either.

   That initial project eventually set me up for Stripe, where, since joining 6 years ago, I was able to more than 5x my total income. I focused on giving my best at my current job and managers of higher paying teams noticed. When offered mobility opps, I negotiated terms to not down level (peers were accepting down levels). With every new manager convo I was upfront that I like to be rewarded financially. I was consistently explicit with managers on where I wanted to land for talent reviews and I was vocal with them when I felt like I was underpaid relative to peers.

   You can call it sharp elbows, I call it self advocacy.

2. I sometimes wish I didn’t go so far with parenting my parents.

   Most immigrant kids can relate to parenting their parents. By default you have to extend yourself where language is a barrier. It goes from helping them with job applications when you’re a kid to helping them buy a house when you’re old enough to understand basic finance.

   Growing up this felt like the norm for me and my friends; I was booking my mom’s doc appts, writing important emails for her work, managing her finances, etc. I had even extended myself to parenting my autistic brother in some ways — I was managing his disability services, applying to private schools for him, etc. It wasn’t until much later that I realized you could come from a 1st gen family and not have to do all of that. Having brown friends whose parents pay for their vacations was a recent development.

   By then I was in too deep, renovating my mother’s first house (that I helped her find and buy), managing 80% of my brother’s services, playing therapist for both parents and absorbing a lot of their tension, all the while getting by with my own personal life. It got to the point where I was clearly filling role gaps for my parents, and was no longer just their daughter Raisa. I was my mother’s husband in many ways, and the rest of my father’s kids.

   Admittedly I continue to operate this way, though I wish I drew firmer boundaries and pulled the crutches off from them. The other day, after weeks of ignoring my mom’s complaint about the boiler, she finally replaced the boiler filter herself. I’ll take those small wins.

4. Find your definition of a good marriage before you get married.

   That’s exactly what I didn’t do before YOLO’ing my 23 year old self into marriage. I got married after 2 years of a long distance transatlantic relationship. No desi parents were pressuring me to marry — in fact quite the opposite. But I was tired of the challenges with a long distance relationship and committed to making it domestic, vis a vis the fiance visa.

   What I hadn’t anticipated after a simple city hall ceremony (I wasn’t going to ask my parents to pay for my wedding) was how much I would change in my 20s, and how my definition of a good marriage would change with that. I became the confident, social butterfly, good daughter, financially independent, corporate baddie that I am in my married years (my husband will claim credit).

   In many ways I focused on becoming me than becoming a wife, and while it was the right trade off, it did mean marriage for the first few years was jarring. I entered marriage without a sense of what a good marriage looked like. Between having divorced parents, abusive romances, and a toxic family, there wasn’t much to model after. This meant I constantly questioned where I was becoming too tolerant of things that bothered me (would I have walked off if we were just dating?) versus too demanding. And as I became more successful in my career, I increasingly became more independent, changing what I needed from a life partner.

   I’m now at a place where I finally feel like I’m figuring out the inner workings of marriage and what “good” looks like for us. In retrospect I wish I was more thoughtful and slow upfront, and I gave myself the space and grace to become the woman that I am without the competing demands of marriage. Needless to say, I won’t be pressuring my future children to get married by a certain age.

5. The slightest difference in attitude is what saved me from major mental health pitfalls.

   I am no stranger to mental health issues. My brother is severely autistic, both parents have disorders, and my husband battled anxiety for years. I also had adversities that could have claimed my mental wellbeing (e.g. getting robbed at gunpoint), but I didn’t let it. A part of me thinks that’s my biological survival instinct. In college, rather than feeling overly stressed while I was in an abusive relationship, I broke out in shingles — a sign from my body that I had to end my relationship before it got to the rest of me.

   Setting aside the biological component, I do prioritize my mental health significantly. This doesn’t need to translate to therapy, massages, or vacations. I take work breaks when my body tells me I need one rather than following a strict 9-6 schedule, I’m an extrovert and optimize my social time, I trust that God is protecting me (this helps especially in short term anxiety inducing moments), and I sleep 8 hrs a day normally. It’s the slightest difference in attitude and lifestyle that has helped me avoid these pitfalls.

To overly generalize: my 20’s were a major inflection point for me — I had officially moved out from the projects, got married, helped my fam move out and buy a house, and hit a major career promotion as Product Lead (months before I turned 30!). And without burning out!

For my 30’s I’m wishing for health, a growing family, and stability. “No more nomading!” I say as I’m off to Asia for 1 month. As I reflect and scroll through photos of my bday celebrations, I’m reminded of the love I have in my corner. People from all walks of life — middle school, high school, college, work etc came out to celebrate life with me. And for that I’m forever grateful <3.