Today, I had the opportunity to get to know my supervisor better. His name is Imran Somji and he is the founder of Appanzee Inc., the app development company responsible for building STABILISE, among various others.
We were talking about professional goals and he shared a post he had written about his own layoff story in 2022. It was an inspiring read, though slightly harrowing in the sense that being laid off is rarely conducive for producing a good feeling the moment it happens. It was Nietzsche however, who wrote, “One must have chaos to give birth to a dancing star” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra).
Depth is often borne from hardship. There are a number of striking features about Imran’s story, which can be read here. Multiple aspects touched me, including this piece of advice:
“…every now and then I do a deep-dive well outside of my comfort zone.”
An integral part of being let go is the space it carves for personal growth. Being laid off, no matter how much one may have expected it, is a nudge towards the unknown.
I remember standing at the foot of a diving board when I was young. I stood at the bottom near the ladder for quite some time. My heart was in a race against my mind. I crept up the rungs eventually, terrified when my bare feet touched the edge of the board. I walked to the front, took many deep breaths, and didn’t jump for a few minutes.
As Imran writes,
“Inertia and the feeling of security can hamper your creativity and potential.”
One of the perils of remaining in a stagnant state for the sake of security is that it eliminates potential and creativity bit by bit.
Not jumping into the water would have meant that I would never experience how it feels to dive into a pool: the breathless descent before my skin feels the crush of the pool against my skin, the scent of chlorine, the sensation of my feet hitting the bottom, the rise up.
I would have remained suspended between pensiveness and action. A safe space, but novelty makes room for understanding that newness may be the strongest precursor for learning helpful skills and developing adaptability.
Source: My Layoff Story by Imran Somji
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