Monday, May 29, 2017

Tiga Puluh: Things I Know Now (written in 2015)


Masa scroll drafts aku tadi, aku jumpa draft ni yang aku tulis in 2015. So aku decide nak publish je lah. 



Tujuh tahun yang lalu, aku tulis satu post yang bertajuk, "Things You Wish You Knew at 17, But Clearly Didn’t", which some people found useful. Jadi sempena masuk 30 tahun, aku nak sambung dengan a simple post. Things I learned by 30 (which you might or might not find useful or relevant).

Sebenarnya aku rasa janggal masuk 30. Really. 30 feels weird because it feels so normal and uneventful. Masa early 20s, aku ada expectations macam-macam. I thought, "By 30, aku dah figure life and myself out. Aku takkan takut dengan dunia atau sesapa. Aku akan ada itu ini. Dah buat itu ini."

But 30 came sooner than I expected. One day I woke up and I was 30. I was different and I had done a lot of things since I was 20, but strangely I don't feel that much different from when I was 20. 

Jadi ni a few lessons I learned along the way:

1. Dah cakap ni, tapi nak cakap lagi. 30 will come sooner than you expected. Jadi kalau kau jenis suka buat janji dengan kawan-kawan macam, "Kalau by 30 kita tak kahwin, jom kahwin each other?", just don't. Trust me.

2. I should've been way nicer and more forgiving towards my parents. Parents aku sebenarnya ada anak masa diorang muda. Sekarang ni baru aku sedar betapa mencabarnya jadi mak aku sebab dia dah kena handle tiga anak sebelum umur dia cecah 30. 
 
3. Aku rasa antara benda yang pelik adalah aku banyak experience benda yang aku ingat I'd experience later on in life, by the time I hit 25. Tengok kengkawan bercerai. Bercerai dan kahwin lagi. Meninggal sebab heart attack. Meninggal sebab cancer. Tengok kengkawan tukar agama, tukar political stance, kahwin dengan bangsa yang diorang anti, eat their own words, macam-macam la. Semua ni aku nampak terjadi masa kengkawan aku in their 20s. Aku tau benda-benda ni akan happen eventually, cuma aku expect they'll happen masa aku 30-50 tahun.

So takeaway lesson untuk aku: Never say never. Because you might just eat your own words soon. Bayangkan, semua orang yang dok cakap diorang takkan jadi jenis parents yang suka upload bebanyak gambar anak diorang, became exactly that! Yang paling suka kutuk agama tetiba jadi religious, and vice versa. Yang conservative jadi liberal, dan yang liberal jadi conservative. Tak mustahil kau pun akan telan banyak kata-kata kau nanti. I ate a lot of my own words too. Nasibla aku ada blog ni untuk merekod semua benda bangang yang aku pernah pikir.

4. Aku sedar aku kena always trust my instincts. Only go for it bila hati dengan otak dedua setuju. Sebab banyak kali hati aku nak, tapi otak aku tak kasi. Also, senang gila nak rasa 'sure' ngan something. Tapi perasaan tu boleh berubah sekelip mata.

5.  On love and marriage: it's unpredictable, because you are unpredictable. Kau macam ni sekarang, tapi 5 years down the road, kau sure ke kau tak berubah? Kau sure ke partner kau takkan berubah? Would you guys be okay with that? Kau takleh expect orang nak stay the same je, sebab kau pikirlah diri kau 5 tahun yang lalu macam mana. So kalau kau nak commit, pikir elok-elok pasal ni. And sebab ni gak kau takleh judge orang yang bercerai.

6. Memang normal la rasa pressured nak buat something sebab semua orang lain tengah buat, tapi actually doing it *sebab* orang lain buat adalah tindakan yang kurang bijak. Janganlah buat big life decisions sebab orang lain buat. You might hate the consequences. Some of those decisions are irreversible.

8. Ramai orang ada short-term memory. So kalau kau mess up, don't worry, they'll only talk about you until the next screw-up comes along. Jadi kalau kau nak buat sesuatu tapi takut dengan 'apa orang kata', remember that.

9. My teens and 20s were my opinionated and self-discovery years. I craved it. Memang aku selalu dok cari orang yang macam aku gak masatu. Suka bertukar pendapat, pastu someone yang boleh validate my opinions and make me feel smart, bla bla bla. All the time. But now I find that shit annoying. Sekali sekala boleh la. Now I just want and need someone to chill with. 

10. Makin tua, kau akan rasa cam lagi senang nak jadi cynical. Nak prasangka buruk dengan orang sebab pengalaman. Dan benda ni akan pengaruh actions kau dan apa yang berlaku kat kau. Fight it. Ada orang ingat opposite cynicism ni adalah naivety. It's not. Kau boleh jadi cynical, sedar tentang benda-benda buruk dalam dunia tapi choose to remain an optimist anyway.

Cynicism exists in you because of something that happened in your past. Optimism, that's something that'll decide your future.

11. Masa ni penentu untuk macam-macam. Antara lesson paling penting aku sedar, kau takkan belajar something unless kau dah ready for it. Macam bayi yang belajar nak berjalan. Orang selalu nasihat kat kita macam-macam, and kita jarang peduli, sebab kita tak ready. Bila dah berlaku, baru kita sedar atau teringat nasihat tu. Benda ni buat aku teringat lagu Buses and Trains from Bachelor Girl. Dia dok marah kat mak dia,

"Hey Mom, why didn't you warn me?
'Cause about boys is something I should have known"


Aku rasa mak dia dah warn dah. Biasanya parents dah nasihat pasal benda-benda ni. Tapi tu lah, banyak benda dalam hidup ni, dah kena nasihat banyak-banyak pun kita tak belajar-belajar lagi. Tengoklah, kita manusia ni dah tua pun biasanya masih bodoh bila perihal cinta.

12. Yeah, aku rasa we should be nicer to the younger ones. Or at least not as condescending la. Biarlah diorang nak merasa pandai ke delusional ke apa. Masa kau umur tu, kau pun benci kalau ada orang kata, "Nanti tua kau tau lah". Macam lah we're in a better place by being cynical pun (macam lah 30 tua sangat pun). Aku paling nyampah kalau tengah happy ke apa pastu ada party pooper datang cakap, "Nanti dah tua/ dah kahwin lama/ dah ada anak/ dah umur cam makcik, kau tau lah". Nak imply semua akan end up in suffering. Macam doa buruk lak. Macam lah outcome semua orang sama. Jadi aku kena belajar supaya kontrol tak buat benda ni kat orang lain.

13. Learn from the old ones. Bukan semua nak ajar kau, tapi kalau ada tu, seriously, learn from them. Tak kisahlah kau rasa diorang ada mentaliti kuno ke, tak cukup kreatif ke. Kau ingat diorang kerja lama tu, diorang takda pick up shortcuts and tips yang boleh menjimatkan masa kau? Bila diorang start brag pasal zaman dulu lagi tough ke apa, kau layankan je la. Alah, cam tak biasa je. Kau pun sama je sekarang.

14. Tapi jangan limit diri kau sebab ada orang yang lebih tua kata kau tak boleh atau tak patut buat sesuatu. If you think it's worth doing, dan kau dah calculate the risks, maybe you should pursue it and find out for yourself. Orang tua memang banyak ilmu dan pengalaman. Tapi diorang bukanlah berpengalaman dalam semua benda. Dalam banyak-banyak paths dalam hidup ni, most people only took one. They might be able to make some calculated guesses about what will happen if you take a different path from them, but they can never know for sure.

15. Kalau benda tu memang ditakdirkan untuk kau, you will get it. Kalau bukan, tak ada apa yang leh ubah benda tu. Of course we must always try. But you could do everything right, and it might still not happen. Dan aku sedar, kalau aku asyik biarkan rasa serba kurang dan "orang lain lagi bagus, what's the point of trying?" take over diri aku, aku mungkin takkan berani buat banyak benda. So I'm glad I took (a few) risks.

Ok, dah 15 points. Sebenarnya banyak lagi, tapi cukup lah buat masa ni. Banyak-banyak sangat kang nyampah pulak. So 30 bahagi 2 = 15 kan, ha 15 cukup lah. Bye.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

what a comeback ,few post in 1 month. harap ada lagi lepas ni. hewhewhew

Anonymous said...

What happened to u in 2016?

Anonymous said...

New reader here.. i am in early 20's and I will take this post as reminder.. macam baca nasihat diri sendiri drpd masa hadapan..

magenta said...

Anonymous June 1: Aku pun berharap akan rajin menulis lagi. Hewhew

Anonymous June 2: Same thing that happens to me all the time. Lazy and not in the mood to do whatever.

Anonymous June 6: Hi thanks for reading! Well hopefully they are relevant to you.

Suliana Yusof said...

Bila baca blog kamu, buatkan saya terfikir kembali apa yang saya buat 12 tahun yang lalu. Tersentap jugak...

crazee_tangerine said...

I've always loved reading your blog. For so many reasons. And I'm turning 30 in a few months haha.

Didi said...

Aaaa semua points pun are so true. Please write more, Mag.