P.S.

A friend called me last night. We both entered the university together around 3.5 years ago. Both of us came from the less popular high school in Indonesia, but of course, no place can ever beat Pontianak's suburban-ity. He went on majoring in Engineering. After so long a time, we updated each other on life, and oh shoot... there it came along: post graduation plan.

I wished I could mute the world when he told me how his job application was going on, his strategy and his telling me how he was glad with his Engineering degree. If he knew how I am actually doing now, he would feel really guilty of saying those. It's like munching a cake in front of a beggar.

Three and a half year, and I am still trapped in this identity crisis, constantly living in denials and dreadful uncertainty. I survived this whole apocalypse of future planning by worrying so much, until I could not take it anymore and consoled myself with this idea: 'screw the success and the money, follow your passion'.

But, this is why I am trapped.

Yes. screw the money and the narrow definition of success, but can I ever have self-esteem? There is no passion without talent, and almost certainly, without a character. And this complication is courtesy of my identity crisis. I am afraid I am just finding excuse for myself, believing that there is such thing as ' young spirit. I saw it works in the 1950s movies where youths just ventured their life to find their passion. I am 21 year-old living in 2010s, the era of meritocracy, where good is never good enough. I can say 'screw the money, and follow your passion', but I cannot deny how self-indulgent I would be. Everyone starts off very early in building their careers so they can relax later when they are 40 something. And even if they can't relax until they are 80 something, being fettish as they are, wouldn't the effort give them self-satisfaction? If I keep on being like this; going against the current (by not working as hard as everyone else) and wasting my years in vagueness; how would it be when I suddenly wake up in my 40s, with children to feed and debt to pay. What would I tell my children about hard work and character?

'As long as we are happy and as long as we are together', again, like in many movies. But I have witnessed myself how impossible it was to be happy when you had to live with so much financial limitation. There is no such thing as happy poor family, except in movies and classic novels. You can farm and feed yourself in the past but not today. You got to work for it and how would you find the time to enrich yourself for something that does not pay when the bills are waiting to be paid?

Money can never buy happiness, but I learnt that it can buy things that make you happy. As a kid, I was not allowed to buy books because good books were too expensive, so mum had to made up a reason that reading spoiled my eyes. Mum was never interested to read anything because we need to save up and if she needed to have a break from working, she would prefer something free : sleep. No enrichment of any forms. When we had family vacation, she would arrange for the cheapest room, cheapest meal, cheapest place to shop, free entry places. That's why I never liked family vacation. When it was supposed to be refreshing and bonding, it just gave all of us stress and tiredness. I'd rather stayed at home.

People say this is shallow. That's how middle class people like me get desperate for self-efficacy. And looking back at how I was raised just saddened me. Perhaps that's how the identity crisis came. I am in the sea of people who were so proper and well-educated.They read good books and watched good movies as a child or went for a ballet or dance class or sport, they heard about their parents' job, they have stories about their parents. They have self-esteem, they know what they want in life. I see this people around me. And I want to be like that, can I not help it? It was such an awful life, can I not have something better?

I am not blaming my parents for this, they are just as unfortunate as I am, if not less. I just find it hard to make peace with myself. I am a bit traumatized with my decisions in taking Physics in NUS and selling my soul to S company for 4-year scholarship with 6 year bond, and living in constant denial to this day. I want to slap you, me-from the-past. I hate you , I really really hate you.

And my friend who called last night, this is what you've done to me. Not your fault but the timing is really not right. (that's how anti-social people exist!)  I have test on Monday and I have not been studying since last night because of this. I panicked and started looking for jobs only to get more panic attack and as usual, until I exhausted myself.