I went for lunch with my director this afternoon. It was my fourth time to sit with him on the same table and listen to his ‘wejangan’. He mostly talked about leadership, well, as expected. But he also mentioned two things that inspire me. It’s about responsibility and life goals. Both words closely related to my current phase of life, of becoming an adult. And his ‘wejangan’ kind of gave me the idea that I have been searching for lately. Pretty much the answer to ‘what should I do next?’ Such a beautiful coincidence, wasn’t it?
On Responsibility
Adults will have bigger responsibility in life compared to kids and teenagers. Mostly because adults choose their path, on their own. We’re not anymore getting the facility of our parents picking which company to work for, as they picked which high school to go to in the past. Many times my director reminds us that to work for the company is fully, consciously, our own decision. No one pull out a gun in front of our head and tell us “you have to work here”. It is our own decision in the very first place. And once we have made a decision, we have to take the responsibility of that decision. Including the consequences.
So to work hard or not to work hard simply is based on how we take the responsibility. Get paid every month while doing not much thing at the office might sounds nice but it is to some extent unfair and irresponsible. You chose to work at that company but it turns out you just want to get paid from the company. I’m not saying that we have to fall in love very deeply with and be fully dedicated to the company. That’s what they called corporate slave, no? What I’m saying is we have to be responsible. Do the bare minimum that is required, at least. Or do even more, depends on what we want to become.
Some people want to be just ordinary. Some people are happy with earning 5-10 mio per month. And that’s okay. But some others are not. They want to earn much more. Not to mention that once they get married and have kids, they will have a greater responsibility to earn more to support their family. To gain more, we have to do more, of course. The truth is, generally, we have to be in a high level of position to earn big bunch of money. That’s where the work hard takes role. Be outstandingly good in order to reach the position. Or just be ordinary to stay at our current place. It’s, again, our choice to choose. What we have to remember is that we can’t blame other people for our misfortune. Don’t be envious of someone getting higher salary because he works super hard everyday. He deserves it. Do we deserve it too? It depends, do we choose to be a person who deserves a position and a bunch of money?
That is why, our goals, who we want to become, pretty much determines how we do our life. Which correlates to the next topic.
On Life Goals
Might sounds lame, but my director reminds us to keep a list of goals in a piece of paper. We’ve heard this enough, haven’t we? But have we really do it? For instance, me, I don’t have one… yet (I’m planning to make one this weekend though).
The grand plan of our life. Write it down so we know where we are now, we know by the end of the year how much we have progressed, we know when to work harder, when to stop, and when to adjust. It is okay to have the plan go off the track, that’s reality, that’s life. The most important thing is that everyday we wake up, we know where we’re heading to. We don’t merely exist everyday and do the same thing all over again and be the same person for the rest of our life. Hasn’t the religion taught us that we’re in such a disadvantage if today is no better than yesterday?
So, do we want an okay life or an extraordinary one?
Again, we decide.
❤️, Atiqah Zulfa Nadia
atiqahzulfanadia.com 