Tuesday, February 5th 2019 |
It's 2019 and I already missed my first goal: Write a blog once a month. Great! I missed writing a post on January. But I'll catch up soon. Believe me, I bet I would write a lot more when I'm there. Because you know, loneliness. Being here with a lot of people is enough to make me feel lonely at times. Can't imagine when I'm there. But then again, I'll survive. I always do.
Having annual resolutions is starting to get old for me. So I didn't really spend time thinking about it. But there is one goal that I've been keeping in mind, that I want to pursue this year.
It's to stop degrading myself.
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| Source: http://www.luiferreyra.com/portfolio/delusion-2/ |
I'm always used to degrading myself in anything that I do. If you are an old reader, you would remember me writing one of this shit on 2015. "What's so special?" That's always the question I ask myself whenever I experience something good in life. So here's another chain of thoughts that I used to have whenever people say or whenever I say to myself:
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"Kamu enak ya Re, liburan terus."
Kalo gaada orang tua aku ga akan liburan terus kok. Kalau pun liburan pakai duit sendiri juga maksa biasanya duitnya. Ga ada yang bisa dibanggain. I just don't have a decent job and have a lot of time to spend useless things with, that's all.
When I taught a class out of town.
Hahaha, Re, Re. Banyak yang sering dipanggil ngajar kelas di luar. Bahkan ke luar negeri. Kamu baru bisa dihitung jari. Ga perlu lebay. Kamu belum ada apa-apanya sama mereka.
"Keren banget, bisa lomba dance sampe luar negeri!"
Hahaha, biasa aja. Belum pernah menang juga. Bahkan pernah peringkat terbawah. Kalau sudah sering bawa piala baru aku pantes bangga.
"Kinerjamu bagus, Re."
Terngakak. Kamu gatau aja seberapa malas aku dan seberapa suka aku procrastinate. I never really did my best. Aku ga seniat itu. Aku ga pintar atur waktuku.
"Enak ya Re, kamu masih bisa jalanin passion kamu dan hidup dari sana." or basically everytime I try to be grateful and enjoy my dance life completely.
Hahaha. Lihat Joditha. Lihat Lia. Lihat temen-temenmu yang lain Re. Mereka sudah berkarir di "jalur yang benar" dan terus naik ke atas. Gaji temen-temenmu rata-rata dua digit. Mereka rapat dan ketemu "orang-orang penting". Kamu masih ngedance doang? Sekarang liat aja, dampak apa yang sudah kamu bikin buat lingkungan kamu? Temen-temenmu semua tambah pinter. Kamu otak kanan terus aja yang diasah.
When I won something.
Ah, itu hogi aja. Karena kondisinya begini begini dan begini. Kalau kondisi ini begitu begitu dan begitu, belum tentu menang. Dan ingat, ini ga ada apa-apanya dibanding mereka. Ga perlu alay.
"Kamu itu pinter Re, pasti bisa sukses."
Sayangnya aku terlambat. Aku belum tahu mau ngejar apa. Ya lihat aja nanti waktu udah pindah, semoga aku bisa excel in life di sana. Btw pinter? hahaha aku cuman pinter ngomong aja. Dan pinter menimbulkan image bahwa aku pinter. The fact is? I'm not. I'm just a dumbass guy who likes to deeptalk without doing any real thing in life.
"Kamu pasti bisa."
Banyak yang lebih bagus dari aku dan aku ga mau lebih jelek dari mereka. Jadi mending enggak.
and the list goes on.
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There. Those are the kind of thoughts I always have in my head. I always counter my gratitude with comparison, with negativity. I always told myself not to be too happy because there are others who are better, who did more, who achieved more. Or because I think people just don't know the "reality" that I'm not that good.
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| Source: http://www.katiegeary.com/artwork/paintings/ |
I became this negative guy having hard time to feel grateful and content about myself and about life in general. I always look up and forget to look down. I haven't been kind to myself. Too much self-loathe. Now I'm a bitterfuck.
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| Source: http://rebloggy.com |
When I think of the reasons why, I came up with two theories:
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1. Instagram Theory
Have you heard? Instagram is proven by research (which I read on some magazine in an indie cafe) to be the worst social media ever invented, in terms of mental health. And I guess I would agree because as I have been discussing with my closest people, we start to compare our lives with those of others. Unconsciously. Have we ever sit down to realize that everything on Instagram is fabricated? People only display the best version of themselves. Blinded to the dark sides. Moreover, with compelling captions to inspire (do you know that people also tend to believe things more profoundly when there are good narratives?). I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. I'm just saying that it can harm our mental health. We start comparing our lives to all these best versions of people. We even forget that our life (we feeds) could be a "benchmark" to their lives too.
In the end, it's hard for us to be grateful for every little positivity on our lives (even if we do, it's only for the gram and its narrative competition) because we are so used to see others achieve more in theirs. Is growth now determined by comparison between ourselves and other people? Or we should remember that growth is when we get better from our past selves?
From now, I will change my "halah Re, baru ngajar berapa kali di berapa kota aja. yang lain lho sudah lebih banyak dari kamu" to "look at you Re, you used to dream of teaching outside of town. Sekarang akhirnya kesampean. What a milestone. Your old self must be very proud of you". Lebih enak nggak? Iya. Oke kamu juga gitu ya. Terserah mau bilang alay atau apa. I will be more kind to myself. Period.
2. "Best friend" Theory
One of my best friend I used to be close with, a very smart, logical and realistic one, excel in life career-wise; used to be my tag team in university life. Always guiding me. Always on the same team. It's like we have the same mindset and work pace. I always look up to this person and seek guidance. I even made a lot of life choices according to the advices I was given. I even think of them as older sibling who I could always rely to. Being realistic, sometimes I received comments like "Kamu benernya nggak kerja keras sih, cuman kamu aja yang pinter bikin impresi sampe orang ngerasa kamu kerja keras.". Or just any "realistic" comments that made me feel pessimistic about myself. It got worse when we graduated and have the same job, even worse when we chose different path after. Always succeeded in making me feel I chose the wrong path, not good enough in my job, don't excel enough in career and pretty much in life. What they said is always true, in logical way. That's why I always trusted them. But it always took away my hope. Now I just realized that it's a matter of difference in timeline, mindset, and what we want to pursue in life. I would never want to be like them in the same way that they would never want be like me, but that doesn't mean I chose the wrong path. I didn't regret dancing my way to this position. Living my dance life to the full extent while visiting different cities, being ignorant about knowledge of startup and business shits, and not working 9-5 in front of laptop.
To you who realized it was you, it's not me hating you. It's just me hating why I was so naive to not see our differences. Your life suits you perfectly well and I'm glad you're enjoying it to the full extent. But I realized that I don't want your kind of life and I realized that it's toxic to think I should. Moving soon, I will re-imagine what I want in my life. It doesn't have to be all about career and serious shits. But I will definitely start enjoying and feel content about everything I'm doing from now on.
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You must be bored by now, reading this long post. But yeah, that's my thinking process towards this goal. In conclusion, I will stop degrading myself. Treat myself better by letting gratitude flow freely. Feel content of every little goodness in my life. And even if it's luck, I will believe in universe that I am worthy of it (thank you Ainun Bahrir for reminding me of that on the "Powerless" post). Embrace my happiness and not giving it my cold shoulder.
I love my life. What I've been through and what is to come.
I love myself.
2019, come at me! It's gonna be great.
