Why Certain Career Doesn't Works

Ever asked what kind of path is better for yourself? Is it art? Academic? Sport? Or something else?

Well, it’s the thing that I have also been wondering for all my life. And I know many of us also wonder. One thing I learned this far, is that I won’t know anything if my younger self didn’t try to keep searching and trying. So indeed the key is to try. But, I think the most important key (which I talked a bit more in the closure part), is being open for change yet also embracing the present. To look forward on specific future yet doesn’t mind for more possibilities, and at the same time, to feel enough of the present.

Not easy for sure, but it’s a great mindset goal to have. Probably one day, we can reach that far.

Anyway, this text may feels nothing special (my insecurity tell me), but honestly, this “nothing special” is the thing that lead me this far. It’s a never-ending belief that I have something special, so I keep searching again and again.

I actually feel shy and insecure telling all of this haha, especially it’s quite personal. But at the same time, I really cherish these discoveries because it’s very useful. Before knowing these, I don’t even realize how much my habit actually influences my career choices. Now, the more I break it down, the more it make sense why several things works yet others don’t. I realize that alignment matters, in self and career, so I want to share these because maybe someone didn’t get the chance to know about this.

So, right now I’m on my 20s. I don’t have my future life perfectly figured out yet, but I do try to figure out my past to understand myself.

When I was a little, my parents don’t really guide me much (life situation exists, unfortunately), including in career choice. They don’t have specific “dream” instilled to me, nor they tell me to not to be something. Or maybe, they just think me as a little child so there’s no need to think that far ahead. It’s good to be honest, because at that time I didn’t get burdened by specific expectations.

But at the same time, I think the little me was feeling clueless and confused, being guided on nothing. So maybe she unconsciously want to fulfill and seek a guidance, which found through other places, stories. I fell in love with reading fanfiction when I was a child. From the popular ninja anime, into a popular witch movie series. I read many types of situation and many types of people from stories, and I guess I learned to be more daring and dreamy haha. Also, more open I guess. After all, my parents instill nothing in my childhood, so the stories are the ones that taught me life.

Growing up, even tho my parents start to “arrange” my life, I guess I was already influenced too deep by those stories who believe in dreams and purposes (I mean, a certain anime character keep saying he wants to be a Hokage right?) so I also keep trying to search for it, even unknowingly.

Before falling in love with reading, I’ve fallen in love with drawing. But it was unappreciated so I don’t really think it’s special. But looking back again, I was quite talented. It’s sad that the little me didn’t get the praises she deserves and had the chance to start early.

But after years of taking a break, and now picking up the drawing pen again, I think there’s indeed a reason why it’s meant to be like that.

Drawing (and any type of undervalued skills honestly) is hard especially mentally. Society doesn’t really appreciate art, even mock it (many personal experiences). The little me maybe forgot about it because she cannot handle those negative voices. Now that I finally able to handle it better, I’m finally feeling safe enough to pick up my pen. And once I’m feeling safe, I became more aware and meaningful in exploring art.

What I mean by being aware is that, now I can notice my preferences in art, sees progress in it and appreciate it. Surprisingly, because my irl I don’t really like doing selfies, etc (just personal preferences), I found that I’m not into drawing faces or full body. Honestly it’s surprising even for myself. I found that I like to draw items or a specific gesture from specific part of the body like hands or feet.

Digging deeper, I finally understand that this is coming from my tendency to deep focus on one thing. I’m definitely good at hyper focus, but that means that I’m horrible at multitasking haha. So drawing faces or full body definitely stress me out because it has so many focus (on my perspective) like hair flows, head angles, hands, feet, body, expressions. It’s overwhelming for someone who just want to draw one specific thing.

Plus in art, I personally feel that the more specific something is, the more clear the message. Maybe because I have been someone who loves clarity. I feel save in clarity. So drawing a specific thing that can relay more clearly on my message feel more saver to me, than a more complicated art than I may perceive as ambiguous. Even for something as complicated as story telling, I will feel more satisfied if it’s simpler or on point. Let the rest be shown through the details of the specific item. Like the example of the gun sketch above. It’s simple, focusing on one item, the gun.

Oh btw, that’s actually a card gun used by one of my favorite anime character, the one and only smart and handsome thief of Detective Conan, Kaito KID! (Lol). If God allow me to have the ability, I would love to draw and color many marks and scratches there, showing how many successful (also dangerous) performance the thief had done in order to achieve his goals. And that’s my style in story telling. The details comes from all the marks and scratches of a specific gun. It shows a story, of a close call to death, of a glorious performances.

Another reason is, probably because I like something to be subtle, influenced by my dislike being the center of attention haha. This is also shown in my tendency to choose soft or neutral color in buying things, or preference in wallpaper or merch that doesn’t shows the character visual blatantly, but their unique color or trademark. And well, definitely it matches my drawing pieces too now (and I enjoy it so much). For those who knows Kaito KID, they definitely knows his gun (If properly drawn haha). It’s his tool for his performance, his absolute unique trademark.

Knowing these thing honestly relieve me a lot. It’s like finally finding a little light after all these time wandering in the dark. It answer my confusions, also let me be confident on my own choices in art. Because I know that this is me. Since then, I find it easier to keep learning and exploring. Maybe because I now have the bright and warm light to guide me so it doesn’t feel as terrifying as before. And oh, before finding these, I found it really really overwhelming to learn color theory for the sake of coloring faces, but now, I found it exciting to learn coloring a freakin metal (lol).

Maybe I do once like to draw visuals (like my childhood drawing), but right now, drawing all these little pieces definitely fulfill me more. People change, indeed. So, it’s always great to be open to all possibilities. Anyway, please don’t get me wrong, I also love appreciating beautiful faces and full body drawing (it’s absolutely gorgeous to be able to draw the gaze or anatomy that can capture you deeply). I also sometimes draws chibi or faces. But just like other artist who have specific art that resonate more on them, I have mine too.

So, for a short period of moment after grad, I’m kind of interested with cosplaying. It’s maybe because after grad, I start to join a lot of japanese event and I keep seeing many cosplayer so I actually want to try it. Plus I usually go with my friend and they also got interested in cosplay, and suddenly my personal interest evolved into a group interest and it has gained a very strong force lol. So yeah, me and my friend start to experiment cosplaying.

Since costume is easier to get now by renting, our group need to work more on wigs and make up. I’m quite interested with make up so I decided to self taught myself on it. I truly enjoy it tbh, to the point I even considering to do make up commission one day lol. But yeah, it didn’t happen because of several reason,

Considering those, I finally ended up not continuing make up as a career interest (for now). Tho it’s a good thing to learn because I now can do my own make up for important events!

I think two years ago I discovered Live2D Rigging. For those who don’t know, it is actually the same as animation but it used specific software to do it which is Live2D Cubism. Right now it is widely used to animate VTuber model.

I actually like doing Live2D because it let me to tinker with a model, and I like tinkering . It definitely give me like a happy boost every time I finished “moving” the model. So I may pick up this focus again in the future. Not now because tinkering and creating something for self expression feels very different for me. I definitely cannot handle both of them together haha.

And why do I like tinkering? Maybe because I just like to figure something out until it becomes clear or on my liking. I am my own guide after all. So it’s definitely satisfying to be able to figure something out yourself for yourself.

VTuber and Live2D Rigging has a very close relationship, it’s no wonder that I want to do them together. But after weighing the pros and cons, I don’t play much game. And rather than entertaining, I’m actually more a serious person lol so I don’t think I suit this path. After all, most of the time I like to talk about healing and break apart a trauma which can stress someone out, rather than making someone happy 😭👍

In elementary, I fell in love with reading fanfiction. And it probably lead me to fall in love with words because I actually start to write fiction stories in my elementary haha (Couldn’t find the file tho 💔).

But I remember I was always stuck in writing fiction. I definitely can conjure a whole ideas and plot of the story in my mind, but to actually write it is very overwhelming. You can’t help but think the best plot, how to avoid plot holes, how to describe situation properly, how to make a dialog. Of course this can be learned little by little, but I was always overwhelmed. It always made me get stuck, so I stopped (Yeah same reason as art haha).

Honestly, if I’m to listen on society voices, I will be blaming the little me as lazy now. Why not work hard to learn all of that? It’s just a small obstacles, why gave up? Etcetera, etcetera. But is it tho? Was the little me lazy?

No.

Cause she did get frustrated every time she found a plot hole and tried hard on fixing it. She got stressed everytime she didn’t have the will to write, so she kept blaming her self on and on for not pushing harder. Can you tell me that the little girl didn’t try hard enough? Please don’t do that.

Looking back again, maybe the little me couldn’t keep moving because she saw writing fiction focus too much on technique, perfection, and results. She did have a message to say, but those messages needs to be hidden inside all these technique that overwhelm her. But she herself (and the present me ofc), are more into a free flow writing that deliver message clearly. Writing is for self expression, so it's free and unlimited. And being someone who value clarity, my work needs to be clear at glance on what I want to deliver. So here I’m, writing non-fiction without too much thinking and planning (lol).

And maybe another reason the little me gave up in fiction is because she didn’t found a very strong purpose behind her writing before. She just did it because she wanted it. Which is valid! But sometimes, strong purpose do give stronger desires, which is why I can manage to push myself in writing this text.

But disclaimer tho. Learning technique is still important. I found that before finding my preferences, I don’t get the “feel” to write so I don’t have the “feel” in learning to improve it. While after knowing the piece I prefer more, I feel more aligned and actually wants to bring out the best in my piece of work, so I’m finally open in learning.

Can I push harder before finding my preferences tho? I can. I did. But I wont lie that it’s hard. So I keep trying to find the right one, hoping maybe it will be easier. And it did.

Aside of writing fiction (and before finding that I like writing poetry or non fiction), I get the chance to try other type of writing. In college, I was majored in communication science with focus in video, radio, and advertisement. Well, it means that I got the chance to write like news report, video script, radio script, or ads writing.

Just like writing fiction, script writing both for video and radio feels burdening. It’s the same reason as the previous issue, too much consideration. Especially producing video and radio work is mostly a group project. I have to keep coordinating meaning with other people, but I’m kinda selfish in creating something haha. Because everyone have their own messages to share and style right? And this is why I also like drawing and writing more, which I can handle on my own.

For news writing, honestly I found it easier because news writing has a clear goal and clear information. Nothing needs to be changed, only relayed (not easy tho). But, the writer basically has the obligation to keep updated with news, which is very hard to me because I’m not too active in social media. I’m the type of person who have my own world and can disappear for days. Not doing nothing of course, but I like to immerse on my own project. So keeping sight on outside world wont be easy.

If any of you asked, what is copy writing, let me quote the explanation from Forbes (Written by Don Dodds) from the post titled “Content Writing Vs. Copywriting In Digital Marketing: What’s The Difference?” :

So yeah, basically copywriting is selling. It’s writing for other people. So nope, it’s not self expression at all. And honestly, it’s so much more complicated than script writing (for me). You have to be convincing enough to sell after all. And please don’t let me talk about difficult clients cry. I have it enough haha.

I actually don’t remember when do I decided to try becoming an editor. Maybe on my college days too. The career was started on a freelance, where I offer a beta reading and editor services for writers. I actually managed to get several clients after, and given a good feedback. Having been reading for years, I guess I have some sense in reading and reviewing esp fiction. But, probably like any other career choice, the job doesn’t feel like me. It’s also very pressuring because I’m really afraid that I have offered the wrong feedback. I need to be pretty pretty detailed in many things too like plot, world building, pace, etc. So after several times of trying, I decided to stop, again hahahaha.

Poetry is actually a way I already used for self expression since several years back. But maybe because I see it too much as personal expression, I can’t really see any goal in it. I also usually write poetry when I have a strong emotion, so, won’t it be terrifying if I write it all the time haha.

Journal writing is one of my favorite choice in writing. They have clear purpose, clear rules, and can be used as self expression if it’s a personal research project. Personally I also like research because like I said, I like tinkering or figuring things out, so research definitely fulfill that. Btw, I got in touch more with this type of writing because I had the chance to become a research assistant on my college for 2+ years, plus I had to finish undergraduate thesis too right? So yeah. Tho it’s very very brain burning writing activity haha, so it remains my side choice for now haha.

I just started journaling this year, and I actually found some surprising discoveries in this. There’s many thing to journal, like daily/weekly/monthly planning, hobby or habit tracking, money tracking, etc. At first I tried journaling for daily schedule and daily habit tracker, but turns out it stress me out haha. For someone who hyper focus a lot of time like me, it’s hard to snap out of focus to change schedule. I basically can sit still for one thing in 5 hours+ without getting distracted once I hyper focus. To let that focus be destroyed because I had other schedule? That shocked me out (It’s like bursting a balloon). So nope.

Currently, I use journaling for monthly planning, memory keeper, and to track project. It’s because monthly planning is much more flexible than daily planning. For other journal, I can also fill it when I’m available, so I wont burden myself too much. Tho I sometimes force myself to do morning journal daily so I don’t immediately grab my phone in the morning (It’s purposeful, so I can tolerate it I guess. Just like workout).

After all these writing journey, I’m now settling with psychology/healing themed non fiction writing (and you’re reading it! I’m happy! Thank you 🥹). This writing let me express myself clearly without worrying about plots, being up to date, or needing cooperation. I do need to improve my grammar tho lol, but I’m willing to do that to improve my work.

Plus, I think I’m now obsessed with psychology/healing topic, so I have a strong desires and goal for writing this. I just want others to be kind to themselves, because I feel it personally how much it has changed my life for the better. It’s hard to let go of this goal when I always see people around me, on social media, keep being harsh to themselves.

I’m no expert in the field at all ofc, I can only offer my experience right now, but I truly wish it can offer insight. Talking about expert tho, I’m now trying to learn Dr. Ross Greene and Dr. J Stuart Ablon approach in psychology because it really align with my experience, choosing kindness and softness than a harsh push. If you have time, please check them out!

Since I fell in love with reading, of course I don’t just fall in love with writing, but also the language! My first love in language is definitely english. It’s more familiar (since it was taught from elementary), but I also love the language vocabulary ranges. It’s vast, and beautiful, so I resonate with it more. So I keep using english until now (that’s why this text is in english haha).

Anyway, I started to actively read in english on 8th grade junior high school. I remember it clearly because it’s when I decided to start reading fanfiction in english because I’ve read all the indonesian fanfic I like (lol). And this habit remains until now because I mostly consume media in english.

In junior highschool, I also got interested in other foreign language like German, Korean, and Japanese. I managed to know a bit of German basic (I even bought a basic book!), but later on drop it out. For Korean, junior high school was the time when I like EXO so much (haha), so I start to get interested in Korean and managed to learn reading hangul (just read thoo).

How about Japanese? I think it’s because anime is easier to watch at that period of time (iykwim lol), so I got more obsessed with it. But JAPANESE ARE HARD! FR! Oh My God, even until now I’m still stuck in hiragana, katakana. So I gave up lol. Funnily tho, in high school, I fell in love with Chinese DESPITE KNOWING IT’S SO MUCH HARDER THAN JAPANESE 😭

It’s the power of obsession I think. Even until now, I still want to learn Chinese because I’m quite obsessed with their literature, history, and culture. I guess I dropped German, Korean, and Japanese because I’m not obsessed enough haha. Seriously tho, I was only interested in learning German because of a song in Attack on Titan sounds very beautiful (lol). While Korean and Japanese, I only like k-pop and anime. It’s not enough reason I guess.

I honestly don’t want to talk about this because after trying it on junior high school, I actually realize how horrible I’m in sport HAHAHAH. Especially basket tho. You have to dribble, think on who to pass the ball, think of your position, etc.

No. 
Nope. 
Thank you.

My nervous system could only panic, thank you. I’m actually better at dodging than handling a ball (proven). The reason? My nervous system was a wreck. It’s either a flight or freeze, so I know I couldn’t handle it at that time so I decided to stop. Plus, I’m not really passionate in sport (I was just trying).

My interest on music started when I got to play traditional instrument gamelan (bonang barung) in my elementary. Honestly, I enjoyed it a lot. Even now, I really don’t mind to start learning again. Music is magic. You can express many thing with it. But, it’s not really the instrument that can be used to express the type of songs I like. Plus, it’s very thick in javanese culture, and I don’t really have obsession with the culture (I still respect it of course).

In senior high school, I also got the chance to try percussion too! Tho again, it’s not the type of instrument that can express the songs I like.

If I have the chance in the future, I wont mind trying more music instrument. I still think music is magic, I also loves to sing, so it’s definitely incredible to be able to sing while playing. It’s not possible now tho, as I don’t have the resource to learn.

Science! My enemy haha 😬

Well, not really enemy, but I really find it hard to cope with science. After graduating junior high school (with good science grade), my parents (being an older generation with their rigid academic standard) wanted me to go to science majored school. I actually wanted to go to language majored school, but at that time, there are not much school offering the major so I set my sight on social. But unfortunately, my parents just wanted me to go to science school, so I could only follow. I was indeed easily influenced back then. I don’t have the courage to pursue my path yet, so I only dared to kept quiet and follow my parents choice.

But in fact, I think senior high school burned me out for real. I slowly forgot my art, my writing. It became a slight interest I recalled, but immediately forget the next time. I still read and learn chinese tho, cause maybe it’s the only thing that keep me thriving. But art and writing didn’t feel exciting anymore.

Looking back again, learning science is like crushing my creative minds. I have always been thriving on self expression in art and words, or maybe singing. I love tinkering and figuring things out definitely, but science in schools felt too burdensome, too rigid. Plus, it was a very overwhelming environment. I was lucky enough to get into a good school, but that also mean that everyone was pushing hard. Too hard. Without knowing, I kept being dragged by the flow, exhausted. Learning biology so hard that the pages of the book were filled with my handwriting of annotation. It’s sad, honestly.

Another thing that makes me feel sad is because, I recently realized that school teaching methods doesn’t suits me. They taught students from the basic, using the bottom up method. Yet being someone who can only learn if interested, my best method is top-down first. So I definitely struggled more on high school.

Finally at 3rd year senior high school, I decided to give up and pursue social humaniora. I realized that, I’ve been suffering for two years, can I handle another 7 years?

Hell no, thank you.

I also listed all the job I want in the future, and most of them are in social field (art, language). So I finally learn senior highschool social humaniora from the start.

In college, everyone seems to be very proactive in their study and work experience so I couldn’t help wanting to try getting into organization too. It’s actually a very great experience, I appreciate it a lot. But maybe being in an organization feels like ignoring my creative minds, so I felt like there was always something missing. I actually resigned from the organization in the 2nd year, but kept trying to find volunteer or internship from outside. But then again, there was always something missing. This kept happening until I graduated from uni and finally stop after rediscovering that art and writing can fulfill me more.

Talking about career, the 9 to 5 job option should never be skipped. Honestly, having 9 to 5 job is actually a good stable career, many of my friends choose this 9–5 job (esp my high school friends). Except of personal reason like I’m my parents caretaker (which will make me impossible to do 9–5 job), I finally decided to settle with freelance art and writing (for now) because I found that I may find it hard to manage 9–5 job culture and environment.

As I share before, I have a messy nervous system, and this does effect my professional also personal ability in workplace. Plus I have tendency in focusing on one specific things, yet many 9–5 creative jobs needs multitasking. It can definitely be trained, but unfortunately, we don’t live in society that tolerates mistake and slow progress. Often, mistakes are responded with anger, scolding, complain, and grumble. Just all negatives. It will only make myself feel worse. I don’t deserve to face that all the time. So I settled down with working individually. Wouldn’t lie that I have the privilege to do so tho (but it also comes with huge burden).

To be honest, I really want to write a text talking about facing mistakes and managing self guilt. I personally have experiences how to manage this after my healing, and it works. Maybe soon I will link the finished text here.

After going through my healing journey, I can say that psychology truly changes my life. Things that feel pretty simple, now feels like they hid a very deep meaning behind. A simple mindset shift and reframing can actually change my whole perspective on something, and it’s very fascinating.

As I said before, I actually have interest in academic topic (writing and research), but I didn’t really have any specific field in mind before. Maybe because I like to figure things out, dissect topics, and finding the clarity behind. Seems that the little me still longs for a clear direction, isn’t it? So she decided to take the matters in her own hands. To find her own principles in life, her own voices. And psychology definitely help her. This field gave me clarity I need about life and human. Everything in my life start to become make sense. Things that I wondered in the past, it’s finally explained clearly. The field definitely saves me.

So yeah, I decided to learn psychology from now on, wanting to know where it will lead me. I’m settling with writing non fiction text like this for now, tho.

Being an advertisement student, of course content creation is something I know. Tho honestly, I find it very difficult. But this one is definitely something uncompromiseable at this age right? So I’m now slowly learning about it (I have too). But being someone who usually do things I only like, this choice definitely didn’t come out suddenly. I only choose to really learn after actually knowing my purpose in content creation. I have to know what I like and happy to share, creating a strong purpose so I can keep holding out on that. So no, it’s not an immediate choice.

Before this, I have changed my personal branding several times, trying to make different type of content but still couldn’t find any that feels right. So it’s hard to keep holding on. I’m now still planning and prepping for the new content creation plan, hoping that it will be the right one. It definitely will take time to start, so I can only be patient and do things one by one.

After all of these text, honestly I can’t say that it can bring something impactful to anyone. After all, it’s just my story. Plus, If I’m asked how do I know when to stop and when to persist, honestly I don’t know how to answer it. Because I just followed my gut. If I want to start learning, I just do it. If I want to stop, I just do it. I actually admire my younger self for that. She dared to keep exploring without thinking too much of it. Maybe because the stake on exploring things at younger age isn’t too high. But now? Society have me (and many of us) in gun point.

But, again (sorry for too much but haha), realizing and writing all of this actually helps me a lot. First, now I understand that when things fall apart, it’s not me being lazy, but I just happen to met something that doesn’t follow my natural ability/flow. People are different, some like to follow their natural flow (like me, so I keep searching), while others have their specific goals. And for someone like me, following natural flow means I have to keep searching until I find the right thing, done in the right way. For me, resistance signal defying my nature, so it’s not some laziness or anything. Another people, maybe already have their specific goals. They have vision, so they work hard for those vision. For them, resistance means challenge, and it’s also a good thing. So based on these consclusions, each action we took should be interpreted based of our goals. It’s not always “laziness to keep moving forward”, nor “unwillingness to follow passion”.

Because of these journey I also understand that for someone like me, the journey on finding my dream career or the journey when I just followed society’s standard are both full of suffering. The stake is indeed high at this age, but for me who prefer to follow my natural passion and talent, pushing myself too much on something I don’t thrive mentally nor physically until I die is just as terrifying as facing the society pressure because I achieve none of their standard. So why not choose something that I naturally thrive in?

But of course, not everyone is like me. If you have a specific goal, I think you need to keep tackling the challenge. I guess it’s like every time I have to finish task I don’t like? The task are necessary and maybe tied to someone else, not something I can pick and choose. But you know, even tho you do have specific goals in career, I think a little tweak is also possible? I mean, I found that there’s a lot of specialties in one career right? That can be tweaked based on your preference. But of course it’s up to you. I just want to share that, it’s possible to find something that follows your natural flow, it just takes time.

Again, I don’t know if this text will help. I definitely appreciate it if you leave any positive feedback. But if there’s anything you want to point out or discuss, feel free to send me question/feedback on my padlet here (anonymous) or send me email to [email protected] because I certainly have limited perspective and experience.

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