These past months have taught me that no matter how hard we try, there’s always something we can’t control. It’s a truth to be told.
I was planning to finish my study earlier. It’s always been my dream to graduate before the fourth year. I worked so hard and tried my best on my thesis. I wrote it as fast as I could, hoping my lecturer will correct it as soon as possible. Turned out she did the correction as late as possible:) I waited for about 3 weeks. Oh, and she changed her mind. She asked me to do the first until the third chapter. But when she finally correct my work, she returned the second and third chapters. She said I should’ve do only the first chapter. She asked me to give her the chapter one by one. I really lost much time. I spent a lot of time making the proposal as she asked me in our first meeting. I lost my time waiting her correction. Double kill.
Long story short, I failed to graduate in January. A hard slaps on my face. I failed my first dream. I need one month to recover from my stress. I need a little time to have a rest and charge my energy.
After a month break, I was back to the track. I did what I have to do. I tried to make it as perfect as I could. I tried to be patient to face my lecturer. Then after months of work, I finally come to the end of the thesis, which is the defense. We used to call it sidang lisan. A funny yet annoying thing happened. One of the panelists asked me to correct my thesis, exactly like the first time I made it, before my lecturer told me to change it. Triple kill.
3 weeks later, I received my thesis score. It’s not the score I expect. It’s below my expectation. After all those things. After those kills. I’m dead. I was dead.
All I thought at that time was it’s not fair. This life is not fair. I worked my ass off and I didn’t get that score. It’s not only I failed my first dream, I even failed my expectation score! I couldn’t think any positive thing at that time.
Not long after that, I read Filosofi Teras. A book about stoicism. It say that some things are up to us, some things are not up to us. We can’t control everything. And those things are not supposed to bother our happiness. As long as we did our best on the things we can control, we should be happy. It’s the process, not the result.
My thesis score is based on my lecturer; is she happy with my thesis, is she in a good mood and so on. Those things are not up to me. I can’t control them. It means my score isn’t supposed to make me sad. I should not be disappointed by my score. Because I know I already tried my best. I already worked hard. I paid attention on details. And that should be enough to make me happy. As I already did the process as perfect as I could. I should be happy no matter what my score will be.
That was a meaningful lesson to me. Some things are up to us. Work your best on them. Some things are not up to us. And that’s okay. That’s called life.
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