Social Climber

Social Climber? For me, Social Climber is someone or a group of people who are just shallow and easily impressed by the stupidest things, some of these people seek pleasure in material goods for being seen in a ‘cool’ environment. Doh! Fyi, these people will absolutely do anything to achieve a high social status.

Ok, lets make simple, jadi social climber kebanyakan adalah orang yang berasal dari strata sosial menengah kebawah yang mencari keunggulan sosial dan ke-eksistensian dengan bercita-cita untuk mengubah hidup agar berada di strata sosial teratas dengan segala kemewahan yang dipaksakan.

Orang-orang seperti ini biasanya “membeli” status sosial mereka dengan hedonisme: tas branded (kebanyakan KW super), mobil (inipun kredit), holiday ke luar negeri (ini juga beli tiket pesawatnya ngredit), ngafe setiap hari, tak lupa tag a place di tempat-tempat kongkow happening dan selfie a la sosialita.

Yang membuat gue tertawa adalah gue punya seorang kawan yang terlahir dari keluarga ningrat terkenal dengan harta tidak tertakar tapi pribadinya sangat sederhana dan ramah, tidak terlihat dia anak orang kaya tapi jika ada seorang fashion stylist pasti langsung ngeh bahwa segala sesuatu yang dikenakan dari ujung rambut sampai ujung kaki teman gue ini nilainya lebih dari 100juta. Coba bandingkan dengan para social climber ini yang sangat angkuh dan sombong padahal mereka bukan berasal dari keturunan ningrat.

Tidak jarang bahkan wabah ini telah membuat banyak orang rela jual diri agar mendapatkan uang untuk membeli barang mewah, ironis. Gue pribadi lebih respect kepada pelacur di gang dolly yang menjual dirinya untuk makan agar bertahan hidup ketimbang untuk memenuhi keinginan tampil mewah.

So, here’s my advice for you guys yang merasa sudah terjangkit wabah social climber ini:

1. Just be yourself,  I know it’s cliche but trust me better to be yourself in your own way, karena ketika kamu menjadi diri kamu sendiri maka orang sekeliling kamu akan lebih jauh respek sama kamu ketimbang ketika kamu menjadi seorang sosial climber.

2. Kalau mau eksis, please please I beg you tolonglah eksis dengan hal yang berguna, bukan cuma eksis upload tas Hermes atau Prada KW atau sekedar check in place di mall, hotel, dll. Kamu bisa eksis dengan cara yang lebih positif contoh dengan menyumbangkan buku untuk anak-anak di pedalaman, bikin acara baksos ke panti jompo atau panti asuhan, ikut dalam kegiatan pecinta alam, ikut menanam pohon untuk kelestarian hutan kita, dll. Asyik kan kalau eksis dengan hal yang bermanfaat buat semua.

3. Perbanyak teman dari berbagai lapisan sosial, jangan cuma dari lapisan atas aja. Perluas jaringan dan berteman dengan orang-orang yang akan membawa dampak positif ke kamu. Kalau gue senang berkawan dengan orang-orang yang mempunyai semangat tinggi serta mampu menginspirasi.

4. Know your limit, semua orang punya batas jadi ketahui kemampuan kamu dan jangan ikut-ikutan kalau di hari kedepannya nanti cuma bakal menyengsarakan kamu dan bikin kamu malu.

5. Daripada upgrade barang-barang mewah lebih baik kamu upgrade pengetahuan kamu, gali potensi yang ada dalam diri kamu dan berkarya lah karena karya tidak akan lekang dimakan waktu.

So, mari berhenti mempermalukan diri sendiri dan mulai mencintai diri sendiri. Bagi gue, seorang yang memang terlahir dengan kemewahan akan bercerita banyak tentang kemanusiaan, pendidikan dengan pengetahuan yang sangat ber-kharismatik dan kedewasaannya, sedangkan seorang social climber hanya akan berbicara dimana dia membeli tas Hermes nya dan kapan dia membelinya.

July 4th, 2015

If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don’t work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again.

Trust

Trust, that’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Babies are born with absolute trust that their needs will be met. So at what age do we learn not to trust? No doubt it varies depending on life experiences, but at some point along the way we all learn the hard lesson that trust can be misplaced.

People betray our trust in them it’s a simple fact of life that it will happen to us all at least once. Sometimes it’s an extremely painful lesson. So what do we do? Trust nobody so that we don’t get hurt again? That’s an option. It used to be my only option for many years. However I eventually learned that not trusting anybody means not letting anybody close to you, sure you don’t get hurt but you also don’t get to feel strong emotions and that means you miss out on joy.

So the choice is a life without pain, but also a kind of vanilla life in a world packed full of flavours. No pain, but no intensity of emotion, no close friendships, no rollercoaster ride that comes with letting people close to you. Everyone is different. But for me, I found that letting people – some people, okay a very few people – close to me has enriched my life in ways I didn’t expect. (I should clarify here that letting people close, to me at any rate, means trusting them.) Mainly because I had no experience in letting people close so had no way of knowing what to expect. Most of the time I feel like the world has become drenched with colours instead of being sepia toned. I like it, I feel alive and it’s a good feeling.

Of course when I am in that hole that I still sometimes fall into, the colours are darker and more dangerous, but then when I get myself out, I am in the bright shining light and it’s far more preferable to me.

So I have found the people I have let close to me to be trustworthy, am I going to say to you all go on, trust in your instincts, it’ll be great! Well no, this is life, not a sitcom. I have made a few mistakes, I have trusted people I should not have trusted. Most recently it was a woman I mistakenly believed was a friend. I found out that she was not, she was in fact simply using my friendship in a deceitful and underhand way. That burned, but it only burned my pride. I felt a bit silly afterwards, and angry for a while. But I had no real emotional connection so it was pretty easy to chalk it up to experience and walk away with a lesson learned.

For me, giving trust is difficult, I found that the lessons learned by trust betrayed are ones learned deeply. I spent – as I said – most of my life keeping everyone in my life at arms length. When I finally learned to break down the wall I had built around myself, and let people in, it was really very scary. It still is, sometimes.

Hello Again

A thousand apologies to anyone who has been checking in to see what I’m up to. It’s been all go for me, go and gone really. And I’ve been sick, which is the main reason why I haven’t written before now. When I’m sick all the words in my head throw themselves to the side of my skull and hide there. I guess my words are my strength and when I am sick I am weak and so my words disappear.

I know, I know, it's been AGES since the last post. It really has been ages, I know. So much for my promise to write more frequently here. A lot of things have happened, some to do with my plans, others unconnected and unexpected.

Happy Valentine

My story is similar to yours. I fall in love, and often too hard. But not all relationship is an easy street. If you are lucky, you will have a hand to hold along the way, but in some path you will need to take it alone. It's about taking all the lesson in every failed one. It's about loving yourself above anyone else so in turn you'll be able to give love, the right kind of love. Happy Valentine.