Episode 1: Pun Bandhu
Live the Big Life
So many aspects of our lives are defined by others’ expectations of us. And oftentimes those expectations are based upon the outsider’s own perceptions, joys and disappointments, and individual views and understanding of the world. How many times have we dimmed our own light because we didn’t want to either outshine someone or let the world know how great we truly are? How many dreams have we left on the side of the road because they weren’t convenient or didn’t fit the narrative of the life we thought we should have? How many opportunities have we left unpursued because we did not feel we deserved them?
My conversation with my dear friend and colleague Pun Bandhu was a great reminder that we are not here to be supporting players in our narratives. There is power and freedom in recognizing and embracing with open arms the wide dimensionality of who we are, even if who we are doesn’t fit into a neat and convenient category of who the world, our parents, and even our friends think we should be. As Pun reminds us so beautifully, we must break free of prisms that prevent us from being the heroes and emotional engines of our own lives.
Through Pun’s honest detailing of his journey – beginning from life in Jakarta, to navigating his teenage years as an immigrant in America, to living out his passion as an actor from the stages of Yale School of Drama to significant roles in theater, film, and television, to becoming an award-winning producer as well as an activist– we learn our life’s work is about paring away the artifice and noise of expectations so that we can reveal who we are – not only to the world but more importantly to ourselves.