English,  Stories

When You’re Not Going Places

My phone’s ringing several times as I was putting my attention to the data I was working at. Apparently, it was a phone call, not from my family nor relatives I’ve ignored lately, but from a friend of mine that I used to talk to. The day he’s living in seemed gloomier than ever. I reckoned it since there’s nothing he shared but anxiety. Kinds of stuff rattled him a lot.

“I ‘ve got something that made me worry.”

“What is it?”

“Check your WhatsApp, I’ve sent you some.”

In less than a minute, I knew what he’s talking about. Unimportant screenshots that posse thousands of meanings.

I understood how he had to adapt quickly to his new journey. Simply like migrating from Facebook to Linkedin. From the daily notifications telling someone’s birthday that turned into proud yet terrifying news as if life were a race.

 


“Congratulate XXX XXXX for starting a new position as General Manager of Gojek…”

“Congratulate XXXX XXXX XXXX for 3 years at Google USA…”

“Congratulate XXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXX for completing his master’s degree at Harvard Medical School…”


 

Just like any other apps, as a user, he could just ignore those things, but the sense of being different, incompetent, and lifeless is real. Feeling of being jobless for months, tired of submitting countless applications, or fed up with being judged as an unskilled graduate. “A failure,” he said.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“I have no idea who I want to be.”

“Is it they, who brought you this total sadness, or it’s just you?”

He couldn’t answer clearly what’s on his mind at the moment. He said nothing but rem silence.

We live and grow in a society where everything’s measured from a social media appearance. Not merely the look, but also the achievements to the rest of our circle. Rather than leaving the social media, it’s better to have a different point of views. We couldn’t control social media, but we definitely could control ourselves. They proly seem going places, but remember, our beloved earth revolves on its axis in its own time.

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