The Engineering of Stability: What Sustainability Means to Me

When I hear the word sustainability, I think of my mother holding a ten-rupee note in her hand, deciding how to stretch it across an entire week.

Before I ever understood the formal definition of the word, I lived inside it. My mother earned her master’s degree while raising two children. My father worked long days at a job he quietly disliked because our stability mattered more than his immediate happiness. At the height of her career, my mother stepped away from her professional life to focus on us while my father carried the financial weight alone.

In our home, sustainability was not a theoretical concept. It was a lived experience of sacrifice paired with a long-term plan. As the eldest child, I watched my mother pause her own future. I watched my father choose security even when it cost him joy. Our household ran on resilience, patience, and the belief that temporary sacrifice could create lasting opportunity.

To me, sustainability means remaining steady under pressure. It means building systems that do not collapse when circumstances shift. It also means ensuring that equality does not rise and fall based on politics or wealth. Sustainability is the stability that endures.

How Women Design the Future

When I moved to the United States at eighteen, my understanding of sustainability grew from family survival to structural change. While volunteering at the United Nations, I met women from across the globe who shared their lives as blueprints for action. They navigated unfamiliar systems to create financial stability while mentoring others. These women reinforced what I had learned from my mother: true sustainability is about designing systems that remain strong long after we are gone.

I believe this kind of lasting change only happens through inclusive leadership. When women design technology, write policy, or manage finance, they change the conversation about what matters to a community. I look to changemakers like Savitribai Phule, Wangari Maathai, and Malala Yousafzai. These women remind us that sustainability starts the moment a girl is allowed to choose her own path.

"Sustainability is not just survival. It is resilience."

The Foundation of Financial Independence

At the end of the day, financial independence is the key to this vision. Resilience is about surviving, but sustainability is about finally owning your life. When a woman has control over her own career and her own finances, she is not just protecting herself. She is securing the future for her family and everyone around her. My mother’s strategic choices created the very foundation I stand on today.

As a student in Computer Science, I now realize my mother was my first engineer. She engineered stability in a world that was often uncertain. Because her sacrifice created space for my growth, she is now pursuing the PhD she once put on hold.

This is the true meaning of sustainability. It is not just survival. It is the resilience that carries forward into the next generation. I am the result of that sustainability.

Diya Adhikari
Chair Young BPW
youngbpw@nfbpwc.org