Becoming a Nobody

What I Learned When I Stopped Trying to Matter

San Francisco May 2024

This article was inspired by a conversation I had with

Andreas D.

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I remember the exact moment I decided I was going to be somebody important. I was sprawled across my grandmother's sofa in Trinidad, legs dangling off the worn armrest, mindlessly pushing alphabet pasta around a bowl while the afternoon rain drummed against the zinc roof.

Every letter that passed my lips felt like swallowing a tiny piece of future possibility.

I was 11, and I had it all mapped out—the prestigious university (definitely something Ivy-adjacent), the corporate ascension (swift and merciless), and the recognition (global, if possible).

My grandmother watched from the kitchen, a knowing smile playing at the corners of her mouth as I declared these ambitions between spoonfuls.

I was going to become a CEO of something, like my Nana (grandfather pictured below). He was the CEO of Hilton Trinidad at the time.

"That's nice, Kay," she'd say, the same way she responded when I announced I'd be the first woman to walk on Mars or invent teleportation.

Adult condescension wrapped in Caribbean politeness.

What I couldn't articulate then—what took me decades and several crises to understand—was that I wasn't hungry for achievement so much as visibility.

In Trinidad and then in America, I felt like a ghost passing through rooms where nobody bothered to learn how to pronounce my name correctly.

Hi – I am Neela Kavita Ragbirsingh, by the way, which means (Poetry, Blue, Blame it on my husband)

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In 2010, I met David during one of those networking events that feel like performance art—everyone pretending they're not scanning the room over your shoulder for someone more helpful to talk to. He was in his sixties, silver-haired, with the kind of ease that comes from having nothing to prove.

"What do you do?" he asked, and I launched into my rehearsed elevator pitch—executive position, impressive-sounding title, subtle name-drops of recognizable clients.

He nodded, unimpressed. "No, what do you do?"

David saw me that night.

I seem to have extraordinary luck with 'Davids' - they have a way of truly seeing me.

We started taking walks in Central Park, spiked coffees in hand (his idea—"Corporate America has driven us to functional alcoholism, might as well lean in").

Between the dogwalkers and the tourists, he'd dismantle my notions of success like someone casually picking apart a chocolate chip muffin.

"You need to let it go," he told me one day as we watched a group of teenagers posing elaborately for photos that would undoubtedly be captioned with inspirational quotes.

"Become no one. That's your path to happiness."

I nearly choked on my coffee. "Excuse me?"

"You're silly, thinking you're important. Just let it all go, Neela."

I was livid.

I'd spent years clawing my way into rooms where people who looked like me were statistical anomalies. I'd collected certificates like some people collect vinyl records. I'd perfected the art of code-switching between boardrooms and family gatherings. And this old man had the audacity to tell me to become nobody?

"With all due respect," I said, which is what people say right before they show zero respect, "I've worked too damn hard to be somebody just to throw that away."

He laughed—not unkindly, but in that infuriating way people laugh when they know something you don't.

"You're just one among millions, adhering to the norms, convinced of your autonomy and control. Yet, it's all an illusion."

I told him he sounded like a fortune cookie having an identity crisis.

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The thing about advice you don't want to hear is that it has this annoying habit of echoing in your head at 3 AM when you're staring at the ceiling.

David gave me a fucking migraine that lasted for months.

Because here's what started happening: I began noticing the absurdity of it all. The performance of importance. The inflated ego. The way my colleagues and I would humble-brag about how busy we were, wearing exhaustion like a designer label. The way we'd introduce ourselves by our job titles as if that was the sum total of our existence.

I started seeing my "somebodyness" as a suit I put on every morning—tailored and impressive but ultimately constricting. And expensive.

God, was it expensive—not just in dollars, but in what I'd sacrificed to maintain it.

Time. Relationships. The ability to sit still without checking email. The freedom to say what I actually thought instead of what would advance my career.

And for what? So, strangers at dinner parties would nod approvingly when I explained what I did for a living? So my dad could tell his friends his daughter was "doing well"? So I could accumulate enough stuff to fill a storage unit I rarely visited?

None of it was me.

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Here's what they don't tell you about the pursuit of MORE MORE MORE: it's a highway with no exits.

There's always another rung, another bonus, another validation hit waiting around the corner. The goalposts don't just move—they fucking teleport.

Get the degree. Get the job. Get the promotion. Get a bigger apartment. Get the relationship. Get married. Get the house. Get a better house. Get the vacation home. Get famous. Get rich. Get richer.

Meanwhile, your actual life—the one happening right now while you're planning your next achievement—slips through your fingers like sand.

One night, after a horrid week where I'd been passed over for a promotion I'd been gunning for, I found myself alone in my apartment, surrounded by evidence of my "success"—the three-piece suits that made me uncomfortable in the New York City subway, the wall of books I was too busy to read, the fancy kitchen equipment still in boxes. I'd spent so much time becoming somebody that I'd forgotten to figure out who that somebody actually was.

The truth is I had no desire to conform.

I've always been that weirdo who did her own thing—the girl who wore mismatched socks to school on purpose, who asked uncomfortable questions at family gatherings, who doodled in the margins of corporate reports. Somewhere along the way, I'd buried that person under layers of professional polish and strategic networking.

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To be very clear, I don't discredit education, degrees, or achievement. I still want MORE—but now I'm ruthless about defining what "more" means for me, not what it means to my connections or my former classmates or the algorithms that serve me targeted ads for professional development courses.

There is a strange, unexpected freedom in becoming nobody. When you stop performing your importance, you create space to actually live. When you surrender the exhausting project of being exceptional, you can rediscover what genuinely lights you up.

David wasn't telling me to abandon ambition—he was telling me to abandon the pretense that my worth as a human being was tied to my resumé. He was suggesting I might find more joy in being ‘authentic’ than in being important.

These days, when someone asks what I do, I pause.

Sometimes I talk about my work, but often I talk about how I'm learning to make my grandmother's curry chicken, or the book that's currently breaking my heart open, or the community garden plot where I'm growing cilantro that tastes nothing like the ones from the grocery store.

Refuse to surrender your 'MORE' to the whims of others—claim it with determination. Don't waste your energy on what others think—it's never that serious anyway.

There is merit to being NOBODY (unburdened).

Sometimes, I still slip back into old patterns. Sometimes, the pull to perform importance is too strong to resist. But mostly, I'm learning to be comfortable with my own smallness, with the beautiful irrelevance of being just one person on a planet of billions.

I don't care about leaving a legacy behind. I care about what I do now in this moment. The brilliance lies in the present—in the breath that fills my lungs and the ground beneath my feet. The world races forward at an unforgiving pace; stars are born and die, and civilizations rise and fall. I know I will be forgotten. This is not a tragedy but a fact.

And on my best days, I can almost hear my grandmother laughing from somewhere beyond, watching as I finally understand what she knew all along—that the alphabet soup of achievements would never fill me up the way simply being present could.

"Most people die at 25, we just bury them at 75". (unknown)

This Thursday, I’ll wrap up my ‘Community Building’ series with a final article from

Hans Jorgensen

Thank you for taking the time.

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