A Year Of Empathy
How a feature in The New York Times changed our lives and propelled our movement of spreading empathy.
Sometimes you don’t know when something really impactful and life-changing happens. Say, the first time you meet the person that becomes your life partner (in my case, it was at a Muji store in the Lower East Side), or a chance meeting that leads to your dream job (in my case, also at the aforementioned Muji store in the Lower East Side). In those cases, you can look back and think, “wow, I wonder what would have happened if I had taken the left turn, or went to another coffee shop, or said no to that date”.
On October 18, 2020, that was not the case for us. We knew that this feature would change our lives, we just didn’t know how (yet).
On this day, a year ago, Michael and I were frantically driving around Boston to find a print of The New York Times. We had just relocated to Boston and didn’t really know the ins and outs of the city (to be honest, we still don’t).
It almost felt like Christmas morning. The article on the website was already live, and we knew that it would be in print on Sunday, October 18, 2020.
We drove around to bodegas, pharmacies, and grocery stores across the city. When we finally managed to find a local grocery store that seemed to carry the New York Times, Michael waited in the car, as I went in and bought five copies of the newspaper. You never know. You know?
As we were scanning through the newspaper, we couldn’t find the feature anywhere. We knew it was printed — we were already experiencing an influx of emails and people connecting with us online. An older gentleman even managed to find Michael’s phone number and left him a voicemail, sharing his story so vulnerably that it made us both cry as we listened.
Still in the car, we went through all five copies of the Sunday Times, without any luck. We later realized that it was printed in the Metropolitan Section of the paper, which we didn’t have access to in Boston. It was both a frustrating and, frankly, amusing experience. I don’t remember what else we did on this day last year, but I remember it as being both emotional and surreal.
What I do know is this: we’ve met some really phenomenal people this past year, and many of them have been so generous to invite us into their organizations to spread the tools of empathy and help create a safe and inclusive space for difficult conversations. And we’ve managed to get Actually Curious in the hands of thousands of people.
In truth, this work keeps me really busy, and I sometimes forget to slow down and really think about the work we’re doing at Curiosity Lab, and the people we’ve worked with this past year. As much as I don’t want to fall into the “all women suffer from imposter syndrome”-narrative: I can’t believe that I get to do this work. Not in the I’m-not-good-enough way, but in a grateful way.
I’m proud to have been a part of building a company that has worked with the likes of NASA, Bumble, Robin Hood Foundation, Havas, Innocence Project, IDEO, Johns Hopkins University, Velocity… The list goes on. It fills me with joy, excitement, and pride to be able to do this work every day.
And even if it was only a few mentions, and a photo of me slurping on noodles from Hanoi House: on this day, one year ago, my name was printed in the New York Times. And that’s a pretty big deal.
