Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, a book that encourage me to pursue my passion.

Recently, I read a book from Sheryl Sandberg “Lean In” based on my friends recommendation (actually, before that, I saw this book’s promotion earlier in an social media account). I got so many insight and encouragement from this book. It really support us as a woman to take part in a working world and never let our passion being buried down only because most of our society value that women’s office is at their home only. Well, this book also raise my curiosity in learning feminism and gender equality (we’ll keep this aside for a while).

There is a sentence in the second chapter that opens my mind about how different women think than men:

“Ask a man to explain his success and he will typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a woman the same question and she will attribute her success to external factors insisting she did well because she “worked relly hard”, or “got lucky”, or “had help from others”.

I just shocked knowing the way we present our achievement or even our value as a women is really different from men. Well, I realize this condition when I was in senior high school but I never depply think about that. Sometimes I talked to my friends how easy the boys learned. I mean, they were not really serious at the learning process in classroom and they weren’t stressfull when we had to prepare for an exam. But in the end, they got best score. I mean, how could this possibly happen? Are women’s brain really created to have an ovethinking habit and self-doubt while man could easily face everything?

Despite on how we created differently, this book challenge me to be more positive and seize every moment I have ahead. The world dictates us so long that women are born to work at home to raise kids. But it is the time to take courage. Many women prove that they could make a difference and balance their life as a worker, leader, wife, and mom. And I experienced this example from my mom. She was a mother and a teacher. Balancing her time in school and raising me and my siblings is not easy. There were sacrifices she should made like using more energy to organize things at home and at her workplace. Having a working mom also means I should went to my neighbor’s house at noon. But this condition made me thinking that an ideal life for a women is to have a job. At elementary school, I started to imagine to have a career and worked in an office using computers, and documents around me.

Well don’t get me wrong. This book talk about the real life a women should live in, not to leave our responsibily as a wife (for those who already married), or a woman. Just, we are not gonna end up in the kitchen at all time. We could’t do it all alone, of course the world still need men, especially those who support us to have a career and improve it, or event support us to be a leader. We need men who willingly share the responsibility at home including doing the dishes, or cook, comfort the baby when they are cry instead of handing it over to us as their mom. Not that we put all the responsibilities as housewives to the husbands, we are just want it to be equal. So when women must be empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. Well, we realize that sometimes we are too controlling and hesitating the men’s part at home (or in relationship), so we are relly sorry about that. From now on I will let the man try things on their own. I believe they could figure it our by themselves, eventhuogh it will be slower than we expect.

The other interesting part of this is book is, besides all the serious talking about feminism, I also get advice on how I should choose my life partner. Choose those who treat you as an equal partner. How could we live in an equal world if the men really worry when their spouse more success then them? The part I like the most about life partner is this:

“When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated, and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home”. I guess this statement covers it all.

So, I recommend this book not only to women but also men who support gender equality. It is a good book.

Be You, Don’t Live with The Flow!

Topics about career, calling, and vocation already caught my attention in the past few years. I am seriously wondering, what is my purpose? Why am I here? Why God allows me to born prematurely? And when the doctor said I would not survive, I survive! I guess life purpose and vocation are the main questions for every people in all ages. It doesn’t sound right if we just born, live our life, and die. There is no such fun in that kind of life. Well, some people will get married, raise their kids, getting old, maybe have a little adventure, and that’s it. Seriously, is that it? Vocation is higher than a career. We could be retire from a career but never from a vocation. That’s why I do really want to know my vocation and live it.

To answer my curiosity, I started to read some books, such as Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, Courage and Calling by Gordon T. Smith (this one very helpful), Raising To The Call by Os Guiness, and many more. I realize that to know my vocation, I have to grow in an intimate relation with The Creator of my life (and yours), because HE is The One who created me, so defenetely He is the one who have the answer. Beside that, one of the important steps to know my vocation is to know who I am.

There are many questions that I found helping me in discovering my vocation, such as: What makes me unique and different from others? What is my strength and weakness? What is my talent and passion? My personality? In what kind of area I deeply feel the pain of the world? Poverty? Education? Health?

Up to this day, I couldn’t answer all the questions yet, but I can say that I made a progress. I am really interesting in knowing my personality, so I took some tests. Thankfully, I involve in a ministry that help me to know myself better. I found out that I am a choleric-melancholy person, and based on MBTI test, I am a Logistician (ISTJ). I started to explore my past life on how my parents, especially my mom, raised me. I grew up become a person who love books, love the knowledge, and I love study (weird, isn’t?). I guess one particular career that cross my mind is lecturer, because I like to explain things. I just feel excited when I could learn something new and share it. In addition, I also love to work on data. I could do same works over and over again, and I love my life in orders. Some of my friends think that live in that kind of routine is boring, but it comforts me. And because I am an introvert-melancholy person, I like to be alone sometimes. Not to live away from the world and community, just to gain energy in my me-time. I accept me, and all the perks of being an introvert-sensate-thinker-and judger person. And I guess this is totally an important achievement in searching of my vocation.

One day, I joined a work interview and the interviewer (who is a psychologist) asked me: which one I prefer, work with data or people. Of course my answer is: data. This job I apply for, requires me to work in a field, not in an office. But I convince them that in my previous job, I learn to work with people. I learn how to lead students, work with older and younger people, learn to hear other opinions, accept their critics, and trying to understand people with different personality than me. I totally aware of my interest, so I answered their question honestly, not play pretend that I like to work with people cause I don’t. But the other interviewer looked on me with doubt. Well, fortunately I passed the test and got the job.

My point is, people sometimes generalize us and dictate us to have all the abilities that this world need. They want us to know all. I guess, it was effected by our education system. In school, we are teached to be excellent in all subjects (in fact, not all students good in sports, science, or history), but we are never teached to develop our ability, or even to know our passion and interest. People forget that all of us are different. We have different personality, passion, and even vocation.

Remembering my answer in my interview test makes me proud of myself, in a good way. I am proud of being someone who know who I am. I don’t want to live a life like everybody else. I don’t want live with the flow. I realize, we are not created to be the same. All of us are special and we have a different path that we have to explore.  In fact, our differences complete each other. Born from parents who work as teacher doesn’t mean you are created to be a teacher too, or a doctor because all of your family work as doctor, and so on.

To help me to stay on my track, these are some questions I ask myself (from Courage and Calling from Gordon T. Smith):

Am I being honest to myself?
Am I living in my own belief and stand for it? Or Am I just doing what everybody else do?
Do I live the life I am intended to be, or do I live in pretend, in other people’s dream, or my parent’s dream?
Do I live only to impress people?
Do I work 6 days a week without passion and focus? Only for getting paid and exhausted?

Well, I am waiting forward to the day I finally live my vocation. But now on, I am really happy to know myself better. I am already making my life plan and yes I know I have a dream, but I am still open for every possibilities in the future. At least today I am making progress, and I hope you do to. Start to know yourself and your dream. The most important thing is: Do not live your life in other’s dream and opinion. Stand for yourself! Being you is special. If you are not living your life, then who will?