It Is What It Is

By addinaf - 2:36:00 PM



There are a lot of things that I want to write down. I'm thinking about this, about that, et cetera; and everything seems connected yet I couldn't find the way out from it. Questioning my self, questioning my decision, questioning society, or questioning life in general. I just wonder.

A lot of people see me as a lucky person, yes, I am. I can say that I'm a lucky person, I have enough of everything. In this context, maybe you can say that I'm privileged. However, I always see (some) others more privileged than me. I'm envious. Since we were a child, I guess society always thought us that everybody can get the same things, the same opportunities, and the same treatments. The society also thought us not to be envious or have that jealousy feeling towards each other. Those are bad feelings. I agree, but sometimes, you can't help but feel that way sometimes.

One day, when I and my husband went to a theme park in Italy, they have two types of the ticket; one is regular, another one is more expensive ticket called express, the benefit is the ticket holder can take a shortcut for the line so basically, you can get into the attraction faster. These options seem okay for me (as a simple-minded), or for us, as an adult, right? However, for some people, it is not. My husband said that some of the parents give suggestions to the management to remove the express ticket option. Why? Because kids don't understand this concept. Some kids ask their parents; why they don't need to wait? Parents find difficulties to explain to their curious children simply because they pay more so they don't need to wait. But, why? Why we have to pay more to have such a privileged to cut the line? Aren't we all get the same opportunities?

The answer is just because we don't. We don't get the same opportunities, we don't get the same things, we don't get the same treatments for some things that we can't control and we don't have the power to change it.

This is just an example of a simple thing like a theme park, which doesn't affect their children (or mine) life in general. However, there are a lot of things that definitely affecting us, affecting mine, my decision, and my life, but I don't have the power to change it.

The thought of it leads me to one of the conversations that I have with my Italian friend. We discussed the immigrants, the expats, and the refugees. We both agreed that everybody has the right to find and to get a better place, a better quality of life. Thus, she said this is called humanity. She is one of the rare Italian (to be fair, I rarely talk about this with my Italian friends, so she is one of a little sample that I have) who thinks that refugees (or immigrants) should be welcomed in every country because we are all human after all.

"How much they learn about Italian, the language, and culture. They are still not a native speaker. They are still not Italian, anyway."

She closed their statement. She said it nicely without she realized that I'm one of the 'immigrants' that we talked about. This is one of the 'privileged' that I talked about before. For some people, they see me as a privileged person, but for some others, I don't have any (or less than them), so that I need to work harder than them to reach the point which maybe I still can't even be on the same level to them. Thus, what you have in the first place leads you to your current or future decision, and so on based on what you 'have' or what you 'get'. Maybe you need a longer time to reach some points that your friend can get it easily, maybe you need three times an effort to get that place than another. Vice versa.  I can't complain anyway because it is what it is.

I'm not saying that you just need to surrender and blame the 'privileged' card. No. We can just accept what we have instead. We must focus on our goals rather than comparing or force others to understand when they don't (and maybe never). It might sounds cliche but yes, everybody has their own battle.

In life, we all have goals. Maybe we have the same goals, but do we have the same level to start with?

Addina Faizati
My fourth autumn in Italy

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1 comments

  1. Keren banget kak!. Butuh lebih banyak lagi perempuan yang aware dan berani menyuarakan suara,jangan mau hidup diatur society apalagi banyaknya stigma yang tidak masuk akal ( bagi perempuan ). BTW, Aku pembaca datangnya dari antah-berantah yang nyasar ke blog kakak hahaha.. dan aku menikmati apa yang kakak tulis, baik itu pengalaman, perjalanan, dan perspektif yang kakak bagi. Semangat trus untuk menjadi perempuan keren versi kakak! doakan aku.. nanti bisa nyusul ke Italia, Tapi sekarang masih berkutat sama materi UTBK buat tes PTN bulan depan HAHAHA.

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