We are people, not a checklist.

Heroes

When I was a design student, I looked up to these great international designers and how much they achieved in a short time. They were on the top, CEOs of the most important design firms in the world. I made that my dream.

I was very young and excited to achieve my dreams and never intended to have anything given, so I worked very hard, sometimes more than needed, and still believed that it was the normal process. If things were easy, anyone would do it.

While trying to follow my hero’s path, I started to notice that most of them were from the United States, specifically from New York, and even in a city with a high cost of living, they started their careers with unpaid internships, again, most of them came from schools like Rhode Island, where tuition and admission for international students are almost impossible to get. Really, I tried.

While building my career path, I learned that to get where I wanted, being as good as my colleagues, wasn’t enough. Privileges still had a big role in this one.

Privileges such as high profile contacts in multiple countries or acceptance in forums with exclusive spaces for members of certain nationalities.

Those advantages they had don’t take their merit away, there are many people with the same privileges, and not all achieve the same. I still see them as figures to follow and even had the opportunity to talk with some of them.

This particular topic was brought up and we got to the same conclusion: their success was a mix of effort, their privileges, and even some luck.

Me

I’m a middle-class Mexican designer that graduated from a private school, one of the best design schools in Latin America. That privilege was thanks to my grades, getting a 90% academic scholarship got me in a “rich people environment” that is not possible for the majority of my country’s population.

Education is the privilege of knowledge that will help you to be free. We must be aware that knowledge is spread unequally because of factors like language, place of birth, connections, etc., so if you have valuable knowledge, share it, don’t hold it; make it accessible. That can make a big change in our communities.

While being conscious of my privileges, I always wanted more.

There are a lot of talented people in the world that struggle with basic income issues and have a difficult path, and even knowing this, my mind was only focused on being 10x better than US designers to compete with them.

All that pressure gave results, also burnout. The dreamy girl became someone that understood how the world works.

Burnout

Now that I have friends (from many backgrounds) who have achieved a great amount in their professional lives, I understand that burnout is a common issue and is not healthy at all. Many people avoid talking about it for fear of affecting their career, but others have opened up about it and this brave move has some great value on new generations.

Another tough lesson was to be mentally strong and be prepared for many “NOs”. Sometimes we keep going on a “naive” level, believing that every dream is possible if you have the willpower even if the rules of the game are not in your favor. I think that’s not healthy, and if we are conscious from the beginning, priorities in our career can change and for the better. There were times people made fun of me because of my “big dreams” and it was discouraging, I lost friends and even got the label of being “crazy” and not in a good way. Some people didn’t want to hear me talk about my interests, they didn’t want to hear me at all.

Equity

The expectation of underrepresented groups is very high; it is not fair for us.

As a woman, I always felt the need to stand my ground and avoid expressing my feelings to avoid being perceived as too emotional or weak.

Being young, I needed to raise my voice when speaking and try to always be much better than my more experienced colleagues to be taken seriously.

As a young women designer in a technological world, I was by default considered dumb, always giving extra explanations so that people understood that in fact, I did know what I was doing.

Money is always a big factor when you want to travel for courses and conferences abroad. I got economic help from institutions and people that believed in me and for that I am grateful, if I had been alone in this, I would not have made it. I was a full-time student with a full-time job, so all my earnings went to expenses like equipment, and paying for my extra education.

My need to travel stems from not having found everything I needed to continue growing, but something in my favor is that I speak English; this opened many doors to be recognized internationally and to create connections in the world of design and typography. Winning awards and lecturing in other countries helped me win a place and be respected in the Mexican design community; sometimes you have to be noticed internationally so that they also do it in your country. I needed to change myself to be heard.

Lessons

I wanted to be like some of the designers that I read about in magazines and blogs, but the reality is that it was almost impossible to have what they had at their age and that frustrated me a lot. I even came to think that I was not good enough and that is why I think it is important to talk about privileges; you can spend your life thinking that what you do is not enough and not understand all the factors that influence the result.Time is overemphasized in our society.

It is also important to understand that there are political, economic, and social factors that do not allow minorities to advance. We all have seen that sometimes these groups try their best to get just the basics while other people inherit some money and do not have to work as hard. The problem is that society makes us believe that the people who are at the top are the ones who work the hardest and if you are not where you want it is only your fault as if effort and talent were the only factors.

With all this I learned that I was not in a speed race, I was in a marathon, and more than trying to do everything at the same speed as others, I had to be strong to thrive. And above all, I had to enjoy the journey because it is a long one.

Now

All the things I mention led me to have an unhealthy life and now at my 26 years old I am trying to understand who I am as a person, what I like, what I don’t want, and what it is to have a personal life. I’m also taking off all those layers that I created to be taken seriously.

There’s still a long list of things I want to achieve and I’m not on the same path as all those design heroes I had when I was in school, but I’m not trying to be like them anymore.

Now I’m just trying to be happy. Happy with who I am, with what I have achieved, and happy with my design community that is on a similar path. Now I am interested in helping more people not to make the same mistakes, from which I am still recovering even though on the outside they only seem like achievements.

Doing so is more difficult than writing about it, so many years with the same mindset are hard to break but I think it’s something that must happen. Systems sometimes have to be broken to work on a more solid foundation.

After many obstacles I managed to achieve some of my dreams, this is a reflection of what it cost me and how I managed to overcome those barriers. This cost is not the same for people with more privileges, but I am grateful for what I had in my favor. Being aware of this also makes me feel sad because many people will not achieve what they want and it is not necessarily because they don’t work hard, it’s because of how society is structured.

Summing it up, I think we are all tired and just want to do what we love and be heard for what we have to offer. We have to be empathetic with others, we are people, not a checklist.

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Thanks to my great family, my boyfriend, and my close friends for helping me believe in myself and encouraging me to continue. Thanks to my mentors and the organizations that believed in me and allowed me to achieve my dreams.