Learning the Hard Way: Why Protecting Your Purpose Matters
TL;DR: Believing in your work is not enough if the spaces you invest in refuse to recognize your ownership and voice. This essay reflects on the hard lesson of protecting your purpose, reclaiming your narrative, and ensuring your leadership is valued, not extracted.
My Time in Higher Education: A Case Study in Misaligned Purpose
Before this reckoning, I spent years in higher education, serving as a tenured professor. On paper, it was a milestone, a position of security, respect, and influence. But the reality was far more complicated. I was brought in to innovate, to build, to represent a new vision for creative education. Yet, despite the title, my leadership was consistently undermined by institutional inertia and unspoken hierarchies.
The invitation to lead came with invisible caveats. My ideas were welcomed in theory, but when they challenged outdated structures or questioned entrenched norms, I was met with resistance masked as bureaucracy. The expectation was clear: maintain the status quo, polish the optics, and stay within the lines of what was deemed “acceptable” by those who had long since lost touch with the evolving creative landscape.
This dissonance was not unique to me. It reflects a broader issue within education where diversity and innovation are publicly championed but quietly stifled behind closed doors. The experience revealed how even spaces that appear progressive can perpetuate gatekeeping, valuing control over meaningful change.
It was in this environment that the tension between my purpose and the institution’s priorities became undeniable.
“I come from a culture where to build is to belong.”
Investing Purpose in Unworthy Spaces: The Root of My Regret
The deepest regret I carry is not about failure or rejection. It's about investing my purpose in a place that was never designed to honor it. Committing my energy, vision, and heart to an organization that saw my contributions as currency, not legacy.
I was invited to lead. Encouraged to build. Asked to envision a future. For a time, I believed that my dedication would be met with partnership and respect. But beneath every nod of approval was a silent boundary: my role was managerial, not visionary. My ideas were useful, as long as they remained impersonal. As long as they didn’t challenge existing power.
This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding. It was a structural reality.
I come from a culture where to build is to belong. Where creation and representation are inseparable. Yet, I found myself in a system that prizes control over collaboration, that extracts labor while denying ownership. A system where leadership is tolerated but never fully entrusted, especially when it comes from those unwilling to conform.
“Regret can rot you from the inside if left unchecked.”
The Fault Line: Where I Stand in This Regret
The sting of this regret is not from failure, but from misplaced faith. I assumed that shared goals meant shared values. I believed that the act of building something valuable would naturally lead to inclusion, to rightful ownership.
What I failed to see was that the table had already been set. My contributions were welcome; my voice was not. The initial excitement of creation gave way to a creeping erosion of trust, marked by patronizing “feedback,” delayed opportunities, and a persistent resistance to giving credit where it was due.
This wasn’t just disappointing. It was a specific kind of humiliation. The slow realization that your best work is being reduced to a transactional exchange, stripped of identity, detached from its source. Every overlooked idea, every appropriated success felt like an invisible wound, not dramatic, but cumulative. Death by a thousand small erasures.
This is not self-pity. It’s precision. My upbringing taught me that hard work, vision, and community-rooted leadership are pathways to respect. What I encountered was a system calibrated to extract, not uplift. Their failure to recognize my worth wasn’t personal. It was structural. And that distinction is where clarity begins.
From Regret to Recalibration: Reframing the Emotion
Regret can rot you from the inside if left unchecked. It loops in the mind, replaying moments of betrayal and missed alignment. But I’ve come to see it differently. This regret is not a scarlet letter of failure, it’s a badge of my uncompromising values.
The disappointment I carry is textured. It’s not bitterness. It’s a deep, bone-level weariness that comes from constantly pushing against invisible walls. A weariness that forces you to ask harder questions about where and with whom your purpose belongs.
This experience forced me to recalibrate. To recognize that misalignment is not a personal defect but a misplacement of energy. My compass wasn’t broken. I was navigating in a place that refused to evolve.
Regret, when reframed, sharpens discernment. It teaches you to recognize subtle forms of exploitation. To protect your time, your vision, and your creative agency. It transforms from an emotional anchor to a directional filter.
So I no longer see this as a diminishment. It’s a recalibration of intent. Every betrayal clarified the importance of aligning with spaces that respect, not just receive. Spaces that don’t see leadership as a threat, but as a catalyst for collective growth.
The Takeaway: What I Carry Forward
This experience has redefined how I approach opportunity and leadership.
Discernment Over Opportunity
Opportunity without alignment is a trap. I now approach every invitation with a simple, cutting question: Does this space want my voice, or just my labor? I will no longer be flattered into roles that strip me of authorship.Protecting My Purpose
Ownership is asserted, but only where it’s allowed to grow. Fighting for recognition in hostile environments is a misuse of my purpose. My energy belongs in ecosystems that understand representation as a right, not a favor.Narrative Reclamation
I will not allow institutions to dictate the significance of my work. My story is mine to tell. Reclaiming my narrative is not an act of vanity — it’s an act of survival, of preserving cultural and creative lineage.
Above all, I carry forward a sharper sense of agency. A resolve to invest only in spaces that recognize the humanity behind the labor, the identity behind the ideas.
“The deeper lesson is unwavering: my integrity is non-negotiable.”
The Deeper Lesson: Institutions vs. Integrity
What cuts deepest is not being denied a title or a role. It’s the betrayal of a promise that was never real. Being told you belong while every structure around you signals otherwise.
This is not just personal, it’s cultural. I come from a lineage where contribution is synonymous with ownership. Where building something means claiming your place within it. Yet I found myself in a system that repackaged my labor into institutional success, erasing its origins.
It’s a quiet violence. A theft wrapped in politeness. And it teaches you, slowly but painfully, that not every opportunity is designed for your elevation.
The deeper lesson is unwavering: my integrity is non-negotiable. The dissonance between what was promised and what was delivered has illuminated a hard truth, proximity does not equal partnership. Labor does not equal ownership. Visibility does not guarantee influence.
Moving forward, I protect my time, my vision, and my creative agency with surgical precision. True alignment demands reciprocity, respect, and the courage to let go of spaces that benefit from your brilliance but refuse to recognize it.
Conclusion: Belief Begins With Self
In the end, the only belief that sustains you is the one you hold in yourself. Institutions will churn through people. Titles will be given and taken. But your purpose — your why — is sacred.
I do not regret believing in the work. I regret believing that systems designed for extraction could ever be transformed through patience alone. That distinction is my compass moving forward.
This experience has reshaped my understanding of leadership. Alignment matters more than access. Ownership without representation is exploitation. My story, my voice, my vision, they deserve spaces that are willing to grow with me, not simply grow because of me.
The real lesson is one of self-respect: invest in environments where your leadership is not merely tolerated but valued. Where your contributions are not commodified but celebrated. Where your growth is mutual, not conditional.
Before we seek validation, we must validate ourselves. Before we seek spaces to belong, we must ensure those spaces are worthy of us.
So I leave you with this challenge: Where are you spending your purpose — and are they earning it?
