Lesson 2: You are allowed to make decisions!

I cannot recall the last time I had the confidence to make decisions—small or big.

All I can remember is that throughout my whole life, what I decided was mostly wrong, or at least, would not be appreciated.

Ah, in this endless cycle of validation-seeking—I am trying my best to stop this habit, I swear. 

In Indonesian, we have this suffix called kan. Although it is supposed to be a suffix, it performs as well as a word which, under common circumstances, has a similar meaning as ‘told ya!’

Whenever you don’t follow a guide or forget to do things as what was reminded or not believing someone's words, when something happens to you, people will use that word.

kan udah gue bilang. (told ya!)

kan udah kubilang. (told ya)

kan. (told ya!!!!)

And so on, the list is endless.

Funnily yet, that is the word I get most of the time when something I decide does not turn out to be what I expect.

I honestly hate that—not the result, but the response. 

Unfortunately, it is beyond my job to control people’s responses, though it can be predicted.

As I begin the second quarter of my first year in this long (research) journey, rather than a research question, I got another life lesson: you can, or even should, or even must, make every decision yourself.

While we still have a team of supervisors here, they are not the ones who decide the route to your final destination. You do and choose what you believe suits you the most.

As someone whose whole life has been spent struggling to make decisions, I find this to be the challenge. I am scared to listen to another kan. 

What do you mean by saying I should make a decision that will cost thousands of dollars or spend another month exploring? How many kan would I get if it failed?

Well well well. But in order to survive, I must. 

My journey has just begun; there are still thousands of days ahead, and hundreds of decisions to make.

I am sure there would be many more kan I will hear throughout the process.

However, I don’t think the kan should be what scares me the most. 

The what-ifs that will come if I don’t decide by myself, or if people decide for me, are what should scare me.

Shouldn’t we stop living by others' decisions and start living by our own, consciously?

Sounds so privileged because it is, lol.

Having decision-making ability and having the chance to make one is a privilege. 

Are you one of them?