Haniyyah is from New York City, “born in Queens, but raised in Brooklyn.” At the time of her interview, she was a graduate school student living in upstate New York. Her days were spent “at work, then school, then the library…then rinse and repeat.”
Haniyyah’s Most Likely To is: Most Likely to Do Something
Listen to “Conversation 4 (Haniyyah)” on Spreaker.
We talked about why she says she follows people “in general” on social media:
“Everybody’s important in their own way. No matter what type of opinion they have, whether they agree or disagree with me, I still think that they have really good points.”
Haniyyah explained to us how she breaks down the different levels of her social media connections:
“The people who actually take a second to read what I had to say under those posts, the people who are actually looking at it, I would consider them more as followers than as anything else…There’s a difference between listening and actually hearing what I’m saying.”
She talked about the role of mentoring relationships in her life:
“You hear over and over again that it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know; and I don’t think I really understood that until recently…I think all types of networks are important, not professionally, but personally.”
We talked about what she sees in her city, and in our country:
“Seeing it in real life…everyday…the injustices…that’s what I see. That’s what I’m living, that’s what I’m breathing…but then I’m also seeing a lot of positivity. The people who are doing great things…you see it, and they shine.
You see it through the conversations that they decide to have, and all the movements that are happening…you know, a lot of people are very impressed with us millennials now.”
Haniyyah shared her thoughts on “keeping it all together”:
“It’s a struggle…it’s a struggle. Your twenties are when you’re supposed to find yourself and do all these things…and I don’t think there’s ever [any] balance… [but I’m] just doing it. I don’t really know how it’s all happening…how this is working, but somehow I’m doing it.
Living day-to-day, I‘m taking care of my personal life, I’m finding a way to still continue doing my professional life. I think one day you just go into the motion, figure out what works, and it keeps working.”
We also talked about what she would like to see more of in the world:
“I think it’s us. I think it all lies on us. We are the media. We are the people. So it needs to start with us. We need to be the change that we want to see.
We need to actually start highlighting the positives…and once we start to look at the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, I think we’ll be a lot better off.”