The essay: How to write about your life ✏
In 2018, the local NBC Investigative Unit in San Francisco completed a report on the trash, needles and, yes, feces that litter the streets of downtown. They came to a startling finding: one of the wealthiest cities in America had a trash and human waste crisis comparable to some of the worst slums in the world.
The news wasn’t surprising to people who live in the Bay Area. Over the past five years, I’ve lived here on-and-off, and I’ve noticed the situation getting worse, especially in San Francisco — and I’m not afraid to tell people as much if they ask. This can prove challenging when I’m in conversations with San Francisco natives or others who relocated here because they were excited to be in and around what the Bay has to offer (money, entrepreneurial opportunity, nice weather, etc.).
So, a few nights ago, over dinner with a couple of friends, the conversation turned to how much they loved living in the Bay Area. One guest was a middle-age, male immigrant to the US. The other was his girlfriend, a San Francisco native who loved the area as well. Eventually, all eyes turned to me.
Isn’t San Francisco great?, they asked.
The pressure to answer in the affirmative was strong. The weather is pretty great, and the food is really fresh (when one can afford it), the park areas in my neighborhood are enjoyable nearly all year-‘round, and the Bay Area boasts one of the strongest biking cultures in the country.
How couldn’t someone love it here?
Well, I responded, it’s not Washington, D.C. …
Their eyebrows furrowed. I wasn’t agreeing with them. How could I not agree with them?
And, I continued, I would appreciate it more if there was greater diversity among the professional class, less wealth disparity, more shelter for the homeless and greater opportunities for those not well-suited to the tech sector.
Their heads cocked to the side a bit. I was clearly not on script.
It would be better, I added, if San Franciscans meant what they said when it came to racial and gender equity, and it would be wonderful if the tech companies had better diversity numbers generally. So, no, I don’t like living here, but it is where I’ve found compelling work, so I make do.
It’s not always easy to be honest — to derail a don’t we all agree-train. But it’s important to be intellectually honest with yourself and others, especially if you want to see change. So, I held true to my lived experience and my sense of right and wrong, and found the conversation ended up being quite productive.
I was able to share the ways in which the area didn’t work particularly well, especially for people of color, women, and those who made the environmentally-friendly decision to not own a car. And, to be fair, my dinner companions weren’t blind pollyannas, they knew that, for all of its wealth, the Bay Area had a lot of work to do in order to bridge the rapidly growing wealth gap.
In the end, we all walked away wiser. They helped me see ways in which the Bay was actually quite nice, and I showed them ways in which it wasn’t quite hitting the mark. No matter the tension or the pain of disagreement, rarely does sticking to the honest answer turn out badly in the long-run, and even in the short run it can lead to seriously positive results. Here are my tips to staying honest with yourself and others:
- Appreciate the other person's/people’s point of view. They have a lived experience, and it’s as valid as your own. Don’t discount it.
- Recognize that disagreement does not equal dislike. Just because you happen to disagree doesn’t mean you dislike the person/people or their ideas. You just happen to see things differently.
- Imagine holding the other person’s perspective. Try feeling what it might be like to hold the other person’s perspective. What would it be like to grow up in the Bay Area suburbs in the 90s? What might it be like to be an immigrant in San Francisco today, having grown up in Argentina for the first 20 or so years of your life?
- Enjoy the tension. I like to think it’s uncomfortable to disagree because you’re learning something new and being challenged to feel something different. Expanding your mind — really learning something new and different hurts a bit. Learn to enjoy the pain and tension.
Enjoy sharing your lived experience and honest opinion, just remember, you’re not the only with a point of view and there is no universal point of view that everyone holds. Between the differences lies infinite opportunity.
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