WHEN SUCCESS FAILS

PARIDHI SINGH is a lawyer and freelance writer living in London. After years of letting ambition drive her, she shares the burn-out moment that made her pause and find a new perspective in an unexpected place.

- PARIDHI SINGH

Failures and setbacks are a common part of life. But what if you do everything by the book, dot the i’s and cross the t’s, and still find yourself lost?

I was in such a situation earlier this year. I had reached a key milestone in an epic odyssey to becoming a human rights lawyer, which began when I was at school in India and came to an end a decade later in England.

I had a sheltered life growing up in a small town in Madhya Pradesh in India, with an abundance of love and nature and blissful ignorance of the world beyond. But as my brother and I grew older, worries about higher education hit us. My parents moved us to the capital city of Delhi. To say that Delhi shocked us as young teenagers would be an understatement. The population, diversity, pollution, poverty, and scale of the city all overwhelmed our senses.

Adjusting and adapting to city life was difficult, particularly in school. All the students spoke English fluently, and it was difficult to fit in without it. It made me think: if I could not fit in, despite being the same ethnicity, age, class, and background, all because I could not speak English or because I was not a city kid, then what was life like for those who were truly different? Those who were impaired, or those who could not afford to go to good schools in the city?

A SPARK 

Human Rights – a profession where you can empower those most vulnerable in society by protecting their freedoms and asserting their rights. My mother’s friend was a lawyer; he told me about this career path, which took root in me immediately. Little did I know that it would become a fire that would consume my entire focus and energy for the decade to come.