Chapter 5. Redefine Ourselves

Hi...,

How is it going? If your day isn’t good enough, we are sharing the same shoes. We’ll talk about it together as well as I am under weather for some cases too. I had read about 3 self-improvement books. Two of them were taught me about how we accept ourselves as a person who willing to be dislike and happy at the same time. Not really at the same time but it is a result of what it takes. I recommend those books to you that were written by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga. 

Sometimes, being happy is a must, and getting that is a choice. We can take any kind of happiness in our life. But happiness is rather a bias nowadays. Especially after I read some books entitled “The Courage to be Dislike”. Happiness is a common thing among people who live in society. The wrong thing that I have found is we seek happiness based on how other people define it. Society sets their standard of living including what happiness is. Thus, it creates a happiness threshold point where we should pass it. They do consider what others say, see, and hear about our actions. From this I just realized that I’ve become one of them, that’s all.

***

Today, through this post, just let me share with you how my feeling has fluctuated in the past couple of days which repeated regularly. The fact that I am in my room where everything can be expressed freely, risen some new problems. This pandemic situations triggered and affected all major and minor aspects. It happens to me. Living in this situation where people easily facilitated to show their feeling or willingness, makes me feel worse. Pop up on the smartphone, a lot of notifications, scroll on social media, are getting addicted. You do look at your friend status, feed, and story, make your head dizzy [ not all ]. Many people want to attract other people for what they did. I did it too even we did not intend to do it, as you have seen on this screen.

We are normal in this condition. Some people want to be a perfect version of their life by comparing each other. What other people have and what I already have today, is a matter to be compared to. We live in a world that people do seek people acknowledgment. We care about other opinions. It is hurt when it comes deeper and deeper in our mindset. As a result, we are depending solely on their point of view, despite we are socially living people. 

I am a final-year student plus 1-year extension who now struggle to be graduate soon. My coming goal is just to be graduate as soon as possible.  I am trying to do what I can do to achieve them. Besides, my short-term goal is to continue my education at the next level and to fulfill this goal. During my last year as a student, I am trying to prepare myself for the next steps, preparing all documents needed, ensuring my class to be done, and seeking all opportunities that might come later. Further do, I have tried to apply for a scholarship first even I haven’t graduated yet. Do you know what comes after I did this? Pros and cons appear one by one in the middle of my journey. Either supporting or humiliating, I received them completely. Ok, maybe you are curious about what kind of humiliating or supporting is, in this case. It is back on how we interpreted them. But I wouldn’t talk about this topic at this time. For making a long story short, we should consider with whom we should talk, consider carefully for what response they might give to you, and let it flows into our inner brain to digest it properly. Because you are the only one who knows more than people that you talked with. We’ll find our convenience and the best solution. 

Being a person is a complex duty. We not only have the courage to do something we want but also, we have boundaries that limit us too. We, as a member of social life, are a part of a community that must complete each other by doing a mutual relationship. It does give us advantages and disadvantages as well. I still can’t divide the differences between them, but since I’ve read some books that talk about it, now I am a little bit clear about why social life can affect us and let us into a problem complex, inferiority, and superiority complex. We sometimes don’t realize that we are forcing ourselves to fulfill what other people want. You may think that it is our duty if we take an example of our child-parent relationship. But we don’t stand for others completely. We force ourselves in the order they will appreciate our work, appreciate our value, so we receive happiness from them. We just buried ourselves into a problem complex, we can’t get escape easily from doing this. What we should do is, begin to set a boundary, we don’t need to fulfill their expectation, we just do whatever we can do and help ourselves better rather than considering what other people think and want. I know it is not a simple solution, but as far as we try little by little, I am sure we can do this in a better way. 

I can write all of these things because I have experienced this philosophical thought inside my mind. Being an adult, a transition phase from a teenager, makes me realized that, I have other enemies besides what I faced usually, but my thought is getting my major enemy from now on.

***

“After all, things I’ve passed until now, I learned that achieving a goal needs an uneasy process. It will determine everything. It will cost you money until off-budget. It will be full of anxiety and insecurity. Those kinds of things exist along the way you struggling. It is uneasy to just read a theory about them and ok, I understand, it is not as simple as that. Becoming a perfect person doesn’t need to be a perfectionist. Nature understands what and when they will give you a thousand pearls like rainfall down in the evening. It is about how far you are ready to receive them.”

--written after I took an exam that already stressed me out. Best regards,