As I enter the next era of my career, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting about my journey thus far. Being an immigrant living with a permanent disability like bipolar disorder has always been a challenge and it hasn’t been easy. But what I’ve realized is that, while I’m extremely proud of the career accomplishments I’ve achieved despite all of the obstacles, I’m most proud of my identity as a Filipino-Canadian immigrant leader and being a dedicated mental health advocate. I’m proud to live my life by the value of kapwa and giving back to my community by supporting and mentoring young Filipino/a/x-Canadian leaders to navigate cultural resilience and inspire action-oriented, community-led change. I’m proud to thrive with bipolar disorder and to use my lived experiences to advocate for better mental healthcare, particularly for marginalized communities. I took some time yesterday to calculate how much I’ve fundraised since I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder ten years ago and I’ve discovered that I’ve fundraised over $4000 to support and finance mental health programs and services led by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). And as of today, I’ve surpassed my original fundraising goal for the CMHA Push-Up Challenge, raising $1065 over the last two weeks!
And when I think about all these things I’ve done over the years — CMHA Ride Don’t Hide, the CAMH Sunrise Challenge, the CMHA Push-Up Challenge, being involved with Kabangka, supporting the Matthew House Refugee Hearing Program, volunteering for grassroots pandemic initiatives to track COVID-19 cases across equity groups, selling Filipino Indigenous face masks during the pandemic, and so many more random initiatives — I’ve never thought about how these activities could benefit me. I just did them because I thought they were interesting or fun or exciting or because they were for a good cause. I’ve never thought about how good it’ll look on my resume or on LinkedIn. I just did them because I wanted to do them and because it was the right thing to do. Because why not?
Yes I am proud of the policy work I’ve done on AI, quantum, and digital technologies. I’m proud of what our team accomplished last year with Canada’s G7 Presidency. But I am more proud of what I’ve given back to my communities in an effort to make this world a better place.
In the song “Head Rolls Off” by Frightened Rabbit, Scott Hutchison sang: “While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth.” While I’m here, I have to do my best to make this world a better place, one step at a time.