Talking to the Roots of the Chinese Bamboo
I was looking forward to coming to BRIC since the day I got accepted. I knew this experience was going to be mind-blowing in many aspects. I am a guy who learns by doing, textbooks are definitely not my best friends. During these three weeks, we have had several learning experiences that do not resemble a normal classroom experience. We were required to read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and more authors, yes. But the approach to the academic experience was way more experiential and insightful that I could have imagined. We have been relieving the stories we read in the books through museums and other inspiring sites. We have been applying concepts to our daily lives. We have been exploring and thinking at the same time.
Yet when I think of BRIC, I do not think of the academic experience. My biggest teachers have been the people I have met so far. I have had the chance to hang out with a really cool group of guys from whom I am learning a lot. For me this journey has become a self-reflection experience more than anything else.
And all of this comes back to a process I put myself in 3 years ago when I arrived to the US to study. After leaving Peru, I promised myself that I would leave behind everything I was doing at that time so I could truly immerse myself in the new experience. I sort of decided to be a “sponge of knowledge”, and prevented myself from leading or creating anything new for it might distract me in my new life. I wanted to be present. It took me a while, I must accept, but I ended up disengaging from the NGO I founded and from the work I was doing at a startup. Not sure about the outcome this decision would bring to me, I decided to just go. Yet, the doubts in my mind chased me.
Yet when I think of BRIC, I do not think of the academic experience. My biggest teachers have been the people I have met so far. I have had the chance to hang out with a really cool group of guys from whom I am learning a lot. For me this journey has become a self-reflection experience more than anything else.
And all of this comes back to a process I put myself in 3 years ago when I arrived to the US to study. After leaving Peru, I promised myself that I would leave behind everything I was doing at that time so I could truly immerse myself in the new experience. I sort of decided to be a “sponge of knowledge”, and prevented myself from leading or creating anything new for it might distract me in my new life. I wanted to be present. It took me a while, I must accept, but I ended up disengaging from the NGO I founded and from the work I was doing at a startup. Not sure about the outcome this decision would bring to me, I decided to just go. Yet, the doubts in my mind chased me.
In that process, I found something that showed me peace: I read about the metaphor of the Chinese Bamboo. This metaphor relates the story of a plant. This plant is not like any other one we know. As you put the seeds into the soil, you need to nurture the plant (water, fertile soil, sunshine, good music) for a looong time -aka four years. You need to take care of the seed, water the soil, without seeing any growth, for 4 years. You need to be patient and believe that you’ll see an outcome, for 4 years. But, if you do not lose hope, in the fifth year, you will experience something amazing. The plant grows 80 feet in just six weeks. This is the case as the bamboo took those years to develop a strong foundation of roots to sustain and promote such growth.
I felt very identified with this Chinese bamboo (my first time identifying with a Chinese being I guess). I knew that if I were to find myself chill with the idea that during these years at Babson I was just going to be a sponge of knowledge, I would find myself growing fast just after graduation. As if my 4 years at Babson were the 4 years of the Chinese bamboo.
But only three weeks into BRIC, I am feeling weird. I have realized that I do not feel comfortable with myself being just a sponge. Could it be because I am about to reach my 4th year? Who knows. Could it be because I lied to myself at the beginning just to feel at peace while leaving behind every venture I was part of? Who knows. Could it be that I was never part of the same process as the Chinese bamboo? Who knows. What I know is that it is time to change something.
By no means I intend to talk about my experience as a special and isolated case. I have shared this metaphor and its complications with my friends here and there, and we all somehow have felt in a similar process. I am extremely happy to see that many of the friends I have met at BRIC are indeed growing like crazy (their business, their minds, their lives, their plants).
So I would encourage you and others to think and reflect on this as well. It does not matter if you do not see much growth or changes in your life for a set period of time. Just be sure that you planted the seed and that you are nurturing it. If not, you might be there waiting for something to happen, but nothing will.
I felt very identified with this Chinese bamboo (my first time identifying with a Chinese being I guess). I knew that if I were to find myself chill with the idea that during these years at Babson I was just going to be a sponge of knowledge, I would find myself growing fast just after graduation. As if my 4 years at Babson were the 4 years of the Chinese bamboo.
But only three weeks into BRIC, I am feeling weird. I have realized that I do not feel comfortable with myself being just a sponge. Could it be because I am about to reach my 4th year? Who knows. Could it be because I lied to myself at the beginning just to feel at peace while leaving behind every venture I was part of? Who knows. Could it be that I was never part of the same process as the Chinese bamboo? Who knows. What I know is that it is time to change something.
By no means I intend to talk about my experience as a special and isolated case. I have shared this metaphor and its complications with my friends here and there, and we all somehow have felt in a similar process. I am extremely happy to see that many of the friends I have met at BRIC are indeed growing like crazy (their business, their minds, their lives, their plants).
So I would encourage you and others to think and reflect on this as well. It does not matter if you do not see much growth or changes in your life for a set period of time. Just be sure that you planted the seed and that you are nurturing it. If not, you might be there waiting for something to happen, but nothing will.
