Somewhere Between Comfort and Courage

> No longer kept down and now focused on things that really matter. Glad to see it :) - @namiks When I read that the other day, that’s true. I felt like I am no longer stuck in my own hell that I created for myself. But let me tell you a bit of a story that this morning I got this AHA moment.  ## The illusion of comfort As someone growing up comfortably, provided for and around the same bubble where nobody has to struggle a day, the idea of working hard wasn’t really instilled to me. It wasn’t really something people talked about or valued much. These people were content as long as there was food on the table and could rely on their properties when things went wrong. But one day, I realized something eye-opening, I was never truly *part* of that bubble. I was just lucky to have been brought into a family that gave me a privileged and luxurious childhood compared to most of my friends. Growing up among those people shaped me into someone who assumed that, when I grew up, my parents would always provide for me. That my future would be as secure as theirs, or at least match the standard of those around me where their parents bought them properties, paid their luxurious wedding bills and even financed their future grandkids too. Then life happened. Now, another character in my life's story appears. My actual family, who value hard work. For someone who always has things conveniently handed to me, provided for,working hard was not in my equation, *not yet* at least. Up until recently, I resent them so much that they made me work long hours almost 8 years ago. It was simple work and I got paid quite a good amount for 15 hours of work. But at the time, coming from resentment, I hated every minute of it. I thought it was some enslavement camp but now, after some years out there, that wasn’t even enslavement, it was luxury for being paid quite well to do some simple stuff. In this economy, having a job is already a gratitude on its own. It took me what now? 8 years after numerous hardships I’ve endured away from where I grew up and such, to finally realize that if we want to get things done, we’ll just have to do it. ## It's like fixing a road with pot holes. When I see my life, it’s like I am on two roads well obviously both with its set of pot holes. On one of the roads, nobody does a thing to fix them. The people there conveniently wait for someone to help them fix it. We all got stuck in just one place and couldn’t continue the journey. Everyone just waits around until someone actually fixes it. Everyone is frustrated but they feel helpless, learned helplessness. So they just wait around and wait. You can probably tell that nothing ever gets done around there. The other road is also full of pot holes but they work hand in hand to fix it. They try to work around it, finding ways to eventually move forward in life. They understand that life waits for nobody. So, they just do it, take a leap and one pot hole, to another, they manage to fix it. It took me some years living on the first road. I was stuck, feeling like I couldn’t move anywhere, suffocated but whenever I am trying to make a move,they are like, “ let’s just wait, somebody might help us”. So years passed and nothing really happened in my life. I was still stuck in the illusion of comfort, waiting around for things to change. Up until I woke up from a long slumber and this illusion, I finally realized all along, I should just do it myself. But it was hard when you're back in the same road as them. You stuck in the same learned helplessness. At least, this time around,I was so tired of it all and everyday, all I've seen was just darkness, a life without hope, and so awful that I would not want to experience it anymore. Once I decided to let go of all of my life’s expectations, my learned helplessness and the illusion of comfort, it was that time when I finally liberated myself. Nobody is going to hand me down something and working hard isn’t something that we should hate. When you have pot holes in life, you fix it not by standing still but by trying to find something to do about it and work your way around it. ### I am the one responsible for choosing and changing my path which only happens when we work hard. I had this realization when I started talking to other people outside the common bubble I had. Everyone is struggling in their own way out there. Some are more challenging than the others. God has been blessing me with many things in life that I forget about all these until HE showed me around which made me realize how privileged I was. Now that I am back into my family’s business that I ran away for so long, I realized that they’re not building it overnight to what I know today. They worked really hard for it to the point that they had things I really wanted in life. They did it all by not embracing comfort but doing the hard thing for it. So, this time I am embracing that part of mine, willing to do the hard work to fix my “pot holes” and maybe going extra miles for it. So, I don’t know where my life leads me after this but I am very excited for November. That being said, see you guys in my future adventure and beyond\! ###### By the way, this was one of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on this year regarding to Hive awareness in Indonesian (Sept–Feb 2024–2025). You can learn how I managed it here : - [Collection Of Indonesian Hive Awareness Project Data, Impact, and Key Learnings SEPT-FEB 2024-2025](https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@macchiata/collection-of-indonesian-hive-awareness-project-data-impact-and-key-learnings-sept-feb-2024-2025) ||| |-|- | |