Episode 2: Rachana Garg

Every generation faces a dilemma that is so great, so unexpected that in order to overcome it, everyone must dig deep within themselves. They must gather their collective fortitude to put aside differences, old hurts, and present strife and come to the table for the greater good.

In 1939 the world began a war whose predicate was laid in the war the world fought from 1914 – 1918. In the 1960s we faced crippling social strife as black people marched, struggled, and died for the promise of America to be equitably extended to us. In 2020 we stared in the face of a global pandemic and mass death, watched George Floyd be murdered on national television, and kept marching for Breonna Taylor’s justice. In 2021, we watched an attempted coup of the US government on C-SPAN by those who were supposed to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

In my wide-ranging conversation with the brilliant Rachana Garg, I was reminded that the antidote to chaos is not a staid peace, but rather a radical dose of empathy, detachment, and curiosity.

Empathy is the vehicle to build community with the people in our world. All people. Not just our cohorts or political comrades. Not only those whom we go to church with on Sunday morning, or synagogue on Saturday night, or no church at all.

Detachment comes from freeing ourselves from the labels that we use to define as the dreaded others/them/they, those who disagree with our worldviews and beliefs. And curiosity is having courage enough to ask even a stranger, “What do you need?”

Rachana pulls from an array of life experiences – the theater, pharmaceutical sales, and yoga, as well as the example of her hard-working parents – to orchestrate a life of openness, breath, and a focused mind.