To Live is to Adapt
Roughly two years ago, I can’t remember the exact date, I was doing a pray in a Sunday Morning. I thought about my parents and my brother that were thousand miles away from me. I am in Tarakan while they are in Bandung.
Those thoughts were enough to burst my tears. I felt weak and overwhelmed by the burden that I have in my office. The pressure of work place was tense and made me think if this job was not suitable for me.
Later on, I just realized the sadness was the product of denying the fact of me working in a place thousand miles away from home. I was unsure how many years I would spend in Tarakan.
As the time went by, the burden of responsibility in my office was not the impossible thing to do. I was getting used to the dynamics in the office and got done everything my supervisor need me for doing.
Tarakan and my office seemed even kinder as days passing on. My colleagues were friendly and my supervisor were not inherently cruel. It made me think things were getting better as I was used to it. All I needed was to embrace the reality and adapt for living in it.
However, such wisdom means nothing without doing real actions. There were three things I did to make my separation from my family less miserable.
1. Projecting of living in the new environment for a long time
Many people said I would only be in Tarakan for two years. As I needed to make living in Tarakan as joyful as possible, I still projected my duty last for a long period of time. There was no need to count down days as it would only make you longing for the expected time to come.
2. Making friends with local people
My office comprised of a fraction of local people and outsiders. I was trying to make ties with the locals in my office, but it was impossible as it was hard to dissociate office life when you were befriending office colleagues. The relation would not be on a par level.
In order to create a life apart from office business, I joined a local community. I completely had no connection with every member of the group in prior.
I got involved in community projects, outdoor activities and hangouts. For some events held by the community, I put myself to do physical work and positioned myself as a staff.
They were fun for sure and somehow made me realize that my life in Tarakan is not completely about office affairs. I couldn’t exert my position and authority in all aspects of my life. It made me sane and restore my sense of powerless as an ordinary person.
3. Living like the locals
All those things I said earlier would not bring me the joy of living in Tarakan unless I lived the life like the locals. There were many things had not been available in Tarakan, like malls, cinemas, Mc Donalds, Starbucks, and everything you often find in cities like Jakarta.
At the first time I set my feet in Tarakan, I got myself shocked that there were lot of things not available. It was understandable since before moving to Tarakan, I was in Jakarta in which everything was around.
So, the local youths often found their enjoy by hanging out in coffee shops. Coffee shops here were existed like moss in a humid place and nearly all of them full of crowds most of the day.
Not only hanging out, camping and exploring in a forest were two things that locals often did. I almost forgot one thing, visiting places recently opened was the routine locals often doing.
For fellow outsiders in my office, many places in Tarakan were simply not worth of visiting. None of them were equivalent to those in Jakarta.
This is not less than a subjective truth however. But, it is certainly pointless to apply the standard that every city in Indonesia should be Jakarta alike. We all know that the pace of development in Indonesia is not equal let alone begin from similar starting point.
It makes you miserable to not adjust your expectation with the reality before your eyes. We need to remember, human being comes to the apex of food chain by making adjustment and adaptation more adept than other creatures on earth. Adaptation simply lives in our DNA.
You might have wondered many stories that I have told were presented in past tense. Yes, it is true. Three days from now, I am moving to Jakarta to work for another department in my office.
As the day of moving is getting near, I often recall good memories and visit places in Tarakan. Two years of my life in Tarakan are certainly filled with good memories. I did not realize it before until they are left behind. You just never know good memories are good memories until you leave them behind.
