I am Unhappy

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
 If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.- Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011)

Perhaps it is the fact that I have finally reached the pits end of my adolescent years, or perhaps university period really is the time when you were being smacked across the face by reality. It was like waking up from a long deep sleep inside the forest and realized how far behind I was from all the other turtles that have raced along with me. Suddenly, the world is too small for all of us to be on top.

Growing up in a Muslim Indonesian family, I learnt to settle. I learnt to play safe, I learnt to yield, to concede defeat instead of fighting for my own choice, dignity and self-esteem, I learnt to be polite and respecting everybody no matter we are at wrong or right.

I wake up one day and I realize I am unhappy. I wake up and realize that it is such a burden for me to attend my engineering classes; it wasn’t as interesting as I have imagined. As I spent the past 3 years struggling through Physics, Mathematics and Mechanics subjects during my A-level and IB period, my mother, my father, everybody, including myself has been able to convince me that this will all be worth it. I’m sitting here realizing, it never was worth it.

I was longing to come back to my Capoeira classes then. That one most enjoyable activity I have ever remembered since I’ve moved to Hong Kong, if not, since I left Malaysia. Capoeira was the only thing that kept me sane through the whole journey of being alienated in a new City, in a new school, in a new rigorous course. I was longing to enjoy the sweat, the music and my best friend by my side.
Then an incident took place. It was a small incident; it was perhaps a misunderstanding. But that incident hits me. Capoeira was something that I will forever look upon, but it is not my main path. Capoeiristas are not my best friends; they are my acquaintances, my connections. I think back of the time when nobody was there to help me when I was scared, at fear, I was traumatic when my mestre and formado was making a move on an 18-years-old me; the very same girl who was suddenly living alone, thrown into the western world of adulthood from a conservative Muslim environment in Malaysia. It wasn’t Capoeira who helped going through my trauma and self-esteem, it was me, it was the same girl.

And I’m sitting here realizing, the money I have spent, the high thoughts I have given, my dignity I have put away to forgive my mestre and my formado, didn’t worth the knowledge and treatment I have received.

It never was worth it.

Then today, I wake up, after long months of hard work I have tried to give to my committee was never worth the experience either. I have tried to be a president I thought I could, making decisions and keeping the committee afloat even when I often feel I was a one-man army, talking to four-sided walls. I make a move, and the walls followed, moving against me putting me in one small space with nothing to support me. Suffocating in helplessness, uselessness, and realizing that my works worth nothing. My works and decision backfired. Suddenly silent and immobility is the strongest weapon, it is better to not do anything than doing something wrongly.

Then I’m sitting here asking, what did I get from this committee? Was it only a short sentence in my CV? Emotional drained and fear of speaking the wrong thing at all times? Or was it even frienemies I will remember for the rest of my university life?

Then I realize; it never was worth it.

Perhaps if I had never met Dylan again after so many years I would never questions the life path I am taking. Perhaps if I never meet Tracey, Dave and Campbell, I would never learn to stand up for myself about the little things in life. Perhaps if I never meet Dylan’s most amazingly loyal friends and all the greatest cutest animals of this house I would never learn what loyalty and happiness should be? I guess seeing their life, their beliefs in happiness made me longing to have abyss of my own. To try doing something that makes me happy.

 Questioning these seemingly little, yet a great deal for me made me questioned the rest of my life choices, starting from people I have let inside my life and those who are forgotten on the way. I put any advantages and simple worrisome thoughts away and really ask myself, “Is this a great relationship? Does this great better as the time rolls on? Does this withstand tragedies that take place? Does this person makes me happy?” I put myself back on my phone, talking to those I know are worthy of, and slowly cutting red tangled strings, which slowed down my journey upfront.

You see, whatever lost you have had so far, no matter how great the impact or the consequences is, will not be as much lost you will gain in the future. Then there I am, using a clean sheet of paper to redo my whole entire life. Typing on a new document, drawing on a new illustrator canvas. Like the rabbit that fell asleep in the middle of the forest, I have lost the race, yet I learnt to not concede defeat, I am simply cutting the amount of sanity and emotions I have lost. Tracey reminded me last night of Steve Jobs commemorating speech. “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.”

Thank You For Waking Me Up :)