(Draft) Some life advice

Dalam Draft — Jan 4, 2021

Photo by Wengang Zhai on Unsplash

Hi, this is a part of the Draft article where I wrote random thoughts to learn writing in English. So bear with me.

Hi there! Happy new year. We made it! We have passed a tough year in 2020. Even so, 2021 still seems to be a challenging year. Anyway, at the beginning of this year, we can use it as a monumental time to start everything again.

In the past two months, I loved to read some advice I found online in Quora. Honestly, I did it because I wanted to reduce the time I spent on social media (especially on Twitter and Instagram). It’s always a long debate when it comes to discussing the upside/downside of social media. No need to argue, I still use it, but I think it would be so much better if I could limit its usage.

Anyway, since I sometimes move to Quora, I found so many exciting things there. One of my favorite topics on Quora is ‘Life Advice’. That’s why tonight I will share some life advice that I personally found insightful.

I do sorry, I didn’t note every author of them. So, every advice belongs to its rightful owners.

Moves in silence

Too many of you can’t move in silence because you want applauses from an audience that doesn’t even care about you.

Not gonna lie, I personally admit that it is so hard to do something without post it on social media. Nowadays digital life inevitably pushes us to share unnecessary things. But now I will try to move in silence, limit sharing something on social media, and don’t reveal all of my life.

Be self-reliant

Learn to help yourself and go after what you want without the approval or aid of others. There is where true power lies. No one is coming to save you. You must captain your own ship and take charge of your own destiny.

I love this advice. I absolutely agree. In the end, the only person who cares and would like to helps us is ourselves. Nobody will care, we already have our own problems in life. Everyone is busy doing their business. That’s why self-reliance is an important thing we should develop. Therefore, never rely too much on someone else. I don’t say that we don’t need collaboration. We need that though. It’s totally a different thing.

Success leaves clues

There aren’t many people who became successful through luck. If you want something, chances are, there’s a proven system for getting it. Follow those who have the results you want and you’ll likely get the same result.

We need a mentor! We need a good circle, we obviously need to learn stuff from the expert. That’s why connections are one of the dominant factors in making people succeed. It’s not always a direct aid from them, but it comes as a comprehensive arsenal for us to achieve things.

You aren’t special and no one actually cares

Seriously. I know that plenty of you was told that you are special. You’re not and no one cares. If you want to be “Special” then stop talking about what you’re going to do someday and go do something worth remembering.

It reminds me of The Dunning-Kruger effect. People tend to overestimate their ability on some tasks and cannot recognize their actual ability. I do have experienced this effect when I was in the second to third of college, I was never trying to improve my skill in programming because I thought I have already mastered it. The reason why I fall into this cognitive bias was that I have got some pretty good achievements and recognition at that time and then didn’t realize that I was trapped in that biased situation.

This advice also stabs me hard, concerning my self-discipline. I try to always plan stuff but lacks action. I now should stop sharing my plans and use my focus on the action I should do quietly. Because nobody actually cares about my plans but me.

Privilege is real and exist

No matter how talented you are, how successful you’ll end up is dependent on whether you started your journey as a sophisticated music prodigy or a homeless man.

I don’t want to romanticize hard work without mentions about privilege stuff. I don’t blind, I know privilege is real and it is a big key to achieve something. It’s not always money or wealth, but it mostly is. Some other things are talents, good body, and class/position. We can have (or lack) those things. If you have some, congrats then. But if you don’t, well, your way may be harder.

But it’s not the only silver bullets. It isn’t the end if we lack privilege. It probably the sign for us to use the only way we have, to achieve something: Hard work. Because, what else can we do, right?

Well, those are some of my favorite pieces of advice I have. But those aren’t all. I still keep some for myself. I know advice and quotes are meaningful, but it’s nothing if we don’t make it into action. Therefore, let’s quit whining and get to work!