To Do - or to Be

Every morning I get out of the elevator on the fourth floor of a certain office building in Cairo, and I’m faced with the choice you see in the picture above.

I was just offered the possibility of moving to a different project within my company – something closer to my adopted home in Dubai, something in one of the sectors I said I was most interested in when I joined, something where the clients are a little more educated and easier to work with. It’s time to get you out of Egypt, they said. Isn’t it?

Even as the conversation continued, my mind went into internal dialogue mode. Time for a status check. What am I doing – and do I want to move?

I am in Cairo, working on economic development – trying to turn around one of Africa’s largest public companies. The work is difficult, stressful, and sometimes frustrating. Everything takes at least three times as much effort as it would elsewhere – three extra layers of bureaucracy, three times as long to make a decision, ten times as long to implement it. My hours are awful, and I travel five days a week. I didn’t have much time to spend with Tal when she was here. I don’t make my sister’s email list anymore (though to be fair, she promised to add me back on this afternoon).

My work matters, and people take notice – but the feedback isn’t all good. The country’s biggest English speaking newspaper put my work on the front page, highlighting that thousands of people were “deeply unhappy” with the decision I proposed and convinced the minister to approve. The paper, somewhat unkindly (but entertainingly) followed up by saying that the government had “taken this decision without any careful study”. Ouch… that’s three months of my work you’re stepping on! The article hangs on the wall above my desk.

But - I believe in what I’m doing. I’ve wanted to do this sort of work since I was in Malawi, 15 years ago – where my dad was working in development. Insert comment about Freud or tragic characters in Greek mythology if you will - they may be appropriate. When my dad died, I wanted to do something. I stopped wanting to be one of the activists protesting outside the WTO meeting in Seattle, and started wanting to be inside the meeting room, making those decisions. The papers didn’t mention that the reason for the decision I recommended is that only the richest 5% of Egyptians will be affected, or that I believe it was a necessary step to turn around the country's biggest public company. Am I right? Only time will tell. The truth is that I’ve become a little emotionally attached – I want to see it through, I want to see and feel the improvement, I want to finish it.

My friend Mike (from Malawi days) came over to visit me in Cairo from Uganda, where he’s been doing relief work. It was amazing to meet him again after all these years, and interesting to see the similarities and differences between the amazing work he does, and what I do. He sets up water wells and sanitation in regions considered too insecure or insignificant for most relief agencies to enter. He sees the results of his work immediately – but doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s sustainable. I on the other hand – even if my whole team did our work to perfection, it would be years until the millions of Egyptians would really begin to see and feel the difference. Even then, we would know that only a small part of the improvement would be thanks to us – the rest would be the work of thousands of others.

Will I believe in what I’m doing to the same extent if I move to a different project? Probably not. But perhaps it is good for me to remember that the good work will continue with or without me. Perhaps sometimes it’s okay to just ‘be’, rather than always feeling like I have to ‘do’. Perhaps I will have more time to enjoy life, be closer to my adopted home in Dubai, and learn more about what I’d like to do - or be - in the future.

One of these days it will be time to follow that little man on the green sign out the door, and see what lies beyond.