I just got back from a conference about the conflict in Syria. I was sitting in a room with several rows of suited middle-aged men and women whose resumes utterly and embarrassingly dwarfed mine.
Director of the International Security Program at CSIS
Senior official in the Department of Defense
Member of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Institute of Peace
USAID Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Democracy
President of Mercy Corps
Chair of the Health and Peacebuilding Working Group
President of Physicians for Human Rights
Vice President of the International Medical Corps
UNHCR's Regional Representative to the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
Columnist for the Washington Post
Leader of IMC's Emergency Response Team in Iraq
UNHCR's Senior Emergency Coordinator in Southern Afghanistan
And there I sat, arms and legs crossed, trying to hide the fact that I would simply never measure up with only the humble promise of a bachelor's degree, three months in Thailand, and a less-than-prestigious internship with a non-profit organization that nobody has heard of.
I felt like a kid. I couldn't come up with any ideas that other people hadn't already submitted and I only understood like 70% of what was being said. What does de facto mean? What's a level-3 humanitarian crisis? I thought polio was eradicated!
This stuff is way above my level of experience and register of understanding.
What resources do I have at my disposal? None.
What do I have to offer? Nothing.
How am I supposed to start conversations with these people? How am I supposed to be able to relate? What questions do you ask the woman who spends most of her time in the Middle East conducting interviews with locals and advising the U.S. government on how to proceed with the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time?
I think these people have it under control. The world would be just fine without me.
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