On 18 and Learning To Be

I just turned 18 this January. Finally, an age that marks the end of high school, the start of my university years, and bridges my way toward young adulthood.

Years upon years in my teenage life so far, I’m a proud witness as I see my friends, or other kids my age, start figuring out the job they want to do in the future and their passion which will define who they are. From doctors, business owners, and designers, to creating initiatives and being a changemaker. They commit to those passions with all they can.

I watched them all with pride, but also a tinge of envy.

Since I was a kid, I have always been hyperaware of how others perceive me. In elementary school, I was aware that I was perceived as the smart one, mostly because at the time I had a better-than-average attention span and liked to read books. And being like any other kid who was raised as an only child, I loved the attention that this label brought me. So I clung and attached that label to my identity as if it were a life jacket that could protect me through any storm. But going towards my teenage years when being book smart was not enough to impress people anymore, I scrambled to find other “things”, other labels I could attach myself to, to keep people in awe when they see me.

This obsession with curating the ideal identity for myself, coupled with my high curiosity which makes it challenging for me to fully commit to anything, produces this inability to pinpoint my passion and my future goal to just one thing. Years ago I wanted to be a songwriter, a musician. Then a lawyer, then an author. Then I developed a very specific interest in gender and media, and not long after I started enjoying researching. Then just a while ago, I suddenly had a newfound interest in Batik and Javanese culture in general. I did try to pursue each and every “passion” I had—and I pursued them well (I’m quite good at all of those)—but it rarely lasted long enough for it to define me like other people’s passions do. There’s too much I want to do for me to settle down to just one thing, one passion.

I used to see this situation as my flaw because it made my long-term future seem unclear. Now I know that I want to pursue something in or related to the field of psychology. But what makes me different from thousands of other kids wanting to enter the same university and the same major as me? What is the issue in this field that I truly care about? Is it normal to not want to become a practicing psychologist when I’m literally studying the field? How can I stand out from others? In what way can I contribute to others in this field? What makes me, me, and not someone else?

There are too many questions and equally many amounts of possibilities in answering them. So much so that I couldn’t even begin to choose.

But a day before my birthday, I found this quote when reading the preface essays of the book ‘Soe Hok Gie: Catatan Seorang Demonstran‘ which flips my perspective on this matter.

Aku mencari dan terus mencari, … Ya, aku bukan aku. Aku adalah meng-aku, yang terus-menerus berproses menjadi aku.

‘PERGOLAKAN PEMIKIRAN ISLAM: CATATAN HARIAN AHMAD WAHIB’

It could be loosely translated as such: “I searched and searched, … Yes, I’m not me. I am me-ing, which is constantly progressing in becoming me”. I’m not meant to be a static, unchanging being. To be exact, perhaps my initial understanding that I need to constantly decide and define who will I be by just one passion, one occupation, or one “thing”, right here right now, is the flaw.

For I am not just one “thing”. I am the process of finding the “thing” itself.

Once that perspective shifts, it dawns on me how much I could have saved myself some troubles if only I just let myself be, instead of fixating on defining myself a certain way. Not all questions should be answered now. Some questions, even, might not have an answer. My identity, my present, and sometimes my future, are things I have to experience, not plan out.

Learning to be is what I need to do. Not in the UNESCO’s 4 pillars of education kind of way. But more in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” kind of way. I want to learn to live. To experience things instead of overanalyzing them. To let myself try out different things without forcing myself to be defined by them.

And even if things don’t go out my way, I’d still have this quote from Brooklyn 99 as my guide:

So, happy (late) birthday me. Don’t forget to live, and may light and love continue to guide your path toward the future ❤