When Rebuilding Life Means Letting Go of Pride

Throughout the end of last year up to now, my blog has always been talking about re-building my life and only today, I got the mental clarity to look back into my progress and some setbacks that I faced, trying to stand up once again in my 20s. It is not easy to rebuild life when you’re in late 20s.

Suddenly, you see everyone around you, younger than yourself, advances in life. They have their life seemingly figured out but you, still stuck trying to climb your way up once again. I am sure that feeling is worse the older you get. But I am trying to suck it up because now, I have no other options.
I humbled myself a lot recently, learning from all sorts of people about the industry that I see myself being a part of for another 8 years to come. One thing that made me realize is that this time I don’t really have to start over, I can continue the legacy that my parents have built.

In Indonesia, recently our youths are plagued by pridefulness and ego. We wanted to get out of our parents’ shadow even when it shapes who we are and our placement in society. When our parents were successful business owners and paved our way to simply continuing it, we strayed too far from their paths. Maybe some are the exception to the rule, but there are people who end up going back to it.

When I stopped listening to my ego, I realized the benefits and opportunities that I can ‘dig’. I think about the connections my family has built, the resources that they have which can help me further in life. I do not have to worry about where to begin, I just need to worry about how to continue the legacy and turn it into my own style.

After learning the rope in 100 days, I begin to start connecting with my family’s connections. Some speak highly of my mother and that they welcome as warmly as they would to my mother. It was nice having that sort of treatment and my job is now maintaining those connections. Because from what I learned, no matter where we go, genuine friendship and connections help us along the way.

Today we have more youngsters hungry for money as well as jobs. It is fierce competition out there and to survive, we need to have that X factor. Even in the line of business that my parents built, we now have more competitors who know how to put/brand themselves out there better than we do.

In fact, I don’t think in the future we will survive without matching the type of resources and stuff that these newcomers put. This is another headache for me that I am trying to figure out.

If there’s one thing I could write now on things I learned building business without any backup, no connection, and basically really bootstrapping even from minus, it is challenging and never as easy as any K-drama or any movies made it out to be.

There are too many factors to play, and I realized only now, with my previous background, it would take me years to just save up the capital. Then, started my business with some percentage risk of failing and burned my savings. But with my current network and the backup I have, it won’t take me long to acquire capital and start any business I wanted. Heck, even they would help me from the ground up to set up the company legally and all that, something I couldn’t even afford to do back in the day.

It is much easier for a person with multiple back up to start over and much harder for a poor person, after failing to get back up again. I have seen how it played out with my adoptive father and the aftermath of it is unnerving. But I also see how someone could fail multiple times and is still okay because their parents basically owned several buffers for them. The thing is, if you fail one too many times, maybe it isn’t for you or maybe you never learn from your lesson.