Dear Kareem:

You are very welcome and I am glad to be communicating with you. I hope you can feel comfortable to continue to communicate with me here for as long as you would like.

You wrote about your work in the organization that is was something you “truly, genuinely wanted to spend (your) time doing”, and that your “heart felt full” while doing that work, and that attaining the regional position “felt like a dream come true”.

But you regret doing that work because it impacted your school performance, it came at the expense of school. And your parents were unhappy about that.

I understand that the friend didn’t intend to hurt your feelings with his response to receiving the box, and that your parents never yelled at you about your involvement in this organization (or otherwise, they never yelled at you?)

I understand that you were taught the importance of performing well in school and agree with the importance of performing well in school and elsewhere. I am also familiar with the “idea of ‘owing your parents'”, being a cultural thing in India and in other places in the world. I myself felt an intense sense of indebtedness to my mother all of my life, until recently, a sense of indebtedness and guilt that greatly burdened me and led to a lot of dysfunction in my life.

You wrote: “while the contents of the box meant a lot to me.. I don’t think I would classify it as having the ‘highest value..’ (but it did mean a lot to me)”- if the box meant a lot to you, then it had a high value to you. Maybe not the highest value.

What is your highest value ???

anita