Kinza Kanwal, pretty weird calling her by her full name. She is one of my best friends throughout the years, someone whom I can rely on emotionally and when I need help with materialistic goods. In the simplest words, she’s always there when I need her. So, when I had to interview someone about their career path, I knew she was the one. We met after her work to conduct the interview. The interview was conducted in a narrative format, and we talked about her career triumphs and setbacks for 2 hours straight. Throughout the years, I had seen her go through the worst scenarios but handling every negativity with her optimism.

I’ve always been interested in her story, but due to her new job, she was quite caught up. Interviewing her not only gave me good life lessons but also helped two friends catch up with each other after months. I believe that after our interview, I’ve known her better than throughout the 5 years we’ve been friends. I had asked her to prepare for the interview by evaluating her professional values and all those factors that created change in her. She and I both had caught covid and met just a day after I was negative, I initially wanted to keep the interview as short as possible, but her life stories were too interesting for me to leave. 

There was so much I acquired after interviewing her especially about changes and how to deal with the worst twists and turns in life. I couldn’t fill everything into my PowerPoint to present, some things were a bit too personal that I decided to let stay between us. Kinza is one of those lucky people that have a great circle of friends, we are a team of people that help each other and from outsider witness point of view, reflect upon each other’s decisions in life, reflecting the concept of outsider witness (Maggie Carey & Shona Russell).

A girl who was most afraid of losing track of her goals, never dated anyone despite being one of the prettiest girls I’ve seen. She had a childhood dream of marrying a pilot, being a flight attendant was her greatest ladder to achieve that. Her biggest achievement in my eyes is to adapt to change and completely swift her life around. I recorded our interview together and made sure that I was allowing her to express herself without my interference. I listened to our recording before making the PowerPoint and analyzed my findings clearly. I kept hearing her mention her parents and her close friends repeatedly throughout our interview. I told her that she was experiencing the concept of “re-membering”. Michael White (1997) popularized the term “re-membering” in narrative therapy by suggesting that people’s identities are shaped by a “club of life” to which they belong.We were taught that we all have members in our club of life who have made major contributions to how we see ourselves. Members of our ‘club of life’ come from a variety of social classes and social rankings. For example, we value one person’s point of view more than another. For example, some people’s opinions matter way more than others. We might only listen to certain people’s opinion on ourselves in life. In Kinza’s life, I informed her that her parents matter the best and are on the highest level of her club of life. Her best friends come next; others are on a lower level in her club. She trusts her parents and besties more than anyone else and treasures them, gives them as much care and attention they’d need.  

I was very proud to present about Kinza, I look up to her and truly believe that all of us could learn valuable lessons from her. She presented her struggles to me in a fun and engaging method, didn’t expect any sympathy but solely wanted to showcase where she got her life values to me. She had gotten into a state of depression when the pandemic hit, I felt held backwards and lost motivation during the pandemic, so I understood her emotions. She had her parents support and rose up from her depressive state to start all over again. She switched her career from an aspiring flight attendant to a lovable non-government organization project assistant. She started indulging herself in work positively and created an amazing example for me to follow too. As she said, everyone has a purpose in life, you can’t go astray that no matter how far you are ahead of behind. Her positivity empowers me to be better and try my utmost best. 

  “It’s okay to start over, just be confident in yourself.” Kinza 

I’m proud of her development in life as well as her work ethics, I wish to be as passionate about helping the community like her.   

References,

Carey, M & Russell, S 2003, ‘Outsider-witness practices: some answers to commonly asked questions,’ The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, No. 1

Carey, M & Russell, S 2002, ‘Remembering: responding to commonly asked questions,’ The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, No. 3