Approved! A line we ought to see

Selama bekerja di kantor, entah udah berapa kali gw mendengar kata-kata Approved. Ia jadi semacam password yang harus diisi sebelum pekerjaan bisa dilakukan. Jika belum di approved, you do it on your own risk. Kalau mau cari aman dan selamat, carilah approval itu. 

Meskipun kadang permintaan approval hanya memperlambat proses dan tidak praktis, namun untuk urusan pekerjaan ini masih hal yang wajar dan bearable. Sayangnya, seeking for approval tidak hanya terjadi di kantor, dalam hidup pun terkadang kita meminta persetujuan orang lain. Sadar atau tidak. Memang bentuknya tidak terang-terangan, tapi hidup yang 'normal' dan 'wajar' sesuai norma yang berlaku di masyarakat seringkali menjadi approval yang menentukan arah hidup seseorang. Misalnya, seseorang yang sudah lulus kuliah ya harus bekerja. Umur segini udah seharusnya mulai memikirkan masa depan (re: mencari pasangan hidup dan menikah). Sesudah nikah ya sewajarnya punya anak, dst dsb.

I did not against the norm. Mungkin norma itu hasil bertahun-tahun lesson learned dari pelajaran hidup orang lain, which is good agar kita tidak jatuh ke kesalahan yang sama. Dan gak ada salah sama sekali jika hidup kita mengikuti norma itu. Tapi yang bikin gw resah adalah, kalau itu menjadi satu-satunya opsi dalam menjalankan hidup, it dictates one's life. In other words, pilihan di luar jalur normal itu berarti salah atau absurd. Atau mungkin acceptable, tapi dengan justifikasi panjang lebar. 

In my case, I am now become those who are out from the normal line. I resigned from my previous job recently. People then assume A-Z regarding my leave. "Do you get better offer elsewhere? Do you feel pressured here?" If I answer "no" then come again another question. If I simply answer that I want to focus on my master degree application, then comes the follow up questions. It is as if my reason is not valid. If people resign because they got a better job, normal. If they go because they want to focus on the family (and this only applies if you are a married woman that want to raise kids or follow your husband to somewhere), fine, go ahead. Sometimes I tired to validate my reason. 

You may say I am overly idealist, a careless dreamer, but I choose to create my windows of opportunity now. I choose to focus on chasing those dreams now, because there is no guarantee that I can do it later in my life. Maybe one year from now I want to built my own family, maybe later I have more responsibility as the first daughter, etc etc. People see let go of a job as a lost. But I see it as an opportunity, to explore my interest, to get other experience in the public health field, to at least give my dream a try. 

And talking about validation, I only seek my parents permission and God. Since I don't know whether God has approved my decision or not, I look it on my parents. I cannot be more grateful that my parents believe in me. Their trust really make a difference. 

So whats next? 

Searching for scholarship and school can be a long exhausting journey. I am grateful that I got my IELTS score in hand (maybe I will write it on another post), I have pass 3 years working experience, and I got a mentorship to ensure that I'm on the right track. Now I have a real work to do as the deadline of one scholarship approaching soon at the end of this month. I hope that this year I will not let it go without give a damn try. In a meantime, I still looking for opportunities to work on some public health projects or writings so that I could enrich my experience and bring something to the table in master degree. This also to ensure that I have a clear research proposal for my grad school thesis because it is indeed a game changer. I see many example of how students that do their master thesis with real interest will actually bring something to Indonesia development later after graduate. I hope I can be one. 

Till next post and have a blessed ramadhan!