How Moving Out on My Own Built Character and 10 Life Lessons I Learnt Along The Way
told through the perspective of your resident Season 1 Rachel Greene archetype
If you would have told me on my last few months of university that I’d be moving to a small industrial city located on one of the Riau Islands, I probably would’ve just rolled my eyes and laughed- fast forward to today and I’ve been here for 2 years. Hi everyone, it’s Zidni, your run of the mill, sweaty, overworked and always-covered-in-grease engineer person. This is the story of how I transformed my personal character from Season 1 (spoiled, ditzy, confused) Rachel Greene to Season 5 (independent, career driven and still ditzy) Rachel Greene. Yes, I did compare my character growth to that of a fictional sitcom character, and no, you will not take that away from me.
Like Rachel, I grew up sheltered, and life was always (relatively, in its own way) easy. Things tend to always work out, and most of my problems fall in the shallow category of school and boys. It was later in my current stage of my life, that I figured out that I was just lucky and as what my lecturer perfectly put it in class one day- “kamu tuh cantik-cantik bloon” (You’re beautiful and yet so dumb). It’s not that I’m completely stupid, I performed well academically, it was life and general social cues that I couldn’t successfully grasp. I cried the first time I rode on a gojek because I thought the man was going to kidnap me, when in fact he just got lost because I wasn’t being a helpful passenger by crying the entire ride. Sorry mas gojek. In short, I was mentally 12 years old all the way up to 21.
My carefree, happy go lucky spirit met her first life roadblock right after university graduation. Being the spontaneous person that I am, I decided to embark on a once in a lifetime opportunity to leave my comfort zone. I received a job offer out of town, and I got the chance to live on my own for the first time, in a new city, as an engineer. For once I didn’t have to be so dependent on my parents all the time. It sounded great in theory, until it came to moving day…. and I cried for a week straight. No, this is not supposed to break your spirit from wanting to live on your own. Despite all the hardships I went through, I wouldn’t trade the last 2 years for anything. Moving away is hard, living on your own is hard, put a pandemic on top of that and it feels like life is straight up showering you in lemons. But through it all I made a lot of lemon pies out of it because I became the person I am today. I’m here to share the 10 lessons I learnt from moving out to a new city on your own and how I’d encourage it for anyone trying to find themselves.
1. Money Management
The first adult take away from getting a full time job, moving out on my own for the first time and being fully financially independent (yeah this one is a shameless flex), is my ability to manage my finances carefully. I learnt that bills are expensive, food is expensive, and that if I wanted to save up for a house or a car, or a non traditional adat wedding, that I’d need to learn to prioritize where my money goes and how to invest my money for future growth.
2. Taking care of myself is not easy
If you ever move out on your own you’d eventually learn to be responsible for yourself, because if you’re not going to feed or clean for yourself, no one will. One thing I resonated most with Rachel is her inability to do simple human tasks like cooking, cleaning and laundry. It was one of the biggest hurdles of moving out on my own, but it was my favorite part of myself to work on. I’m not particularly good at cleaning, I did rely on goclean before the pandemic and I’d say my room is not perfectly tidy- but no hairs, minimum dust and no tripping hazard is still a win for me. I learnt to cook for myself, they don’t always turn out the best, but I’m learning to experiment and manage my food resources too.
3. Eating vegetables and exercising regularly
This is a big one. When I initially moved out on my own, I stopped eating the healthy salads my mom made for me and started eating things that I wanted to. And instead of going on my weekend jogs with my dad, I spent my weekends at home watching Netflix. This was a form of liberating myself from all the haunting veggies and all the work during my weekends. Little did I know, that it took a huge toll on my health, I got sick a lot. So let me tell you before you have to learn the hard way, with your 20 something year old body and a sedentary work life, you need to have some form of exercise in your routine
4. Making sure to call family (and friends) occasionally
When you’re out living your new adventure, you tend to be so focused on what’s around you that you might forget your support system back home. I read a quote that resonated with me
“Sometimes we are so busy growing up, we forget that they are also growing old”
I learned through my distance from my parents just how important they are in raising me, so I learned to forge the bond through regular phone calls -the same goes for my siblings and my close friends from school who are embarking on their own personal growth journeys.
5. It’s okay to feel lonely, find joy and comfort in being alone
Loneliness was a huge struggle for me. I mean yes I do have my co-workers and some friends outside of work to talk to and socialize with everyday. But after a long day at work and there’s no mom to welcome me home or my lovely and terribly missed embak to cook me food- life tend to feel incredibly gray. On days like this I’d indulge in me time sessions by pampering myself in skincare and eating delicious take out. I’ve learnt to find joy in being alone, the peace and quiet is sometimes quite nice, I get to reflect and find myself.
6. Finding myself
I’d say in my 24 years of life that I’ve “found” myself around 100 times. But nothing helps open your eyes wider in figuring out what you want in life than to distance yourself from other people’s opinions- living out on your own gives you the time and space to reflect. From living on my own I learnt to focus on myself fully and selfishly, because when else will I get the chance to? By moving out on your own you’ll come to learn that that opening up yourself to new opportunities and overcoming adversities alone are when you really find your strengths and weaknesses too.
7. Friends are everywhere, connections are important
Credits to my (self-proclaimed) charming people skills and my ever-present loneliness, I learnt to make small talk to a lot of random strangers. Through doing so I’ve made friends with some helpful grab-drivers, hospital clerks and airport employees. So let me tell you how important it is to forge connections with people no matter what they do in life, because you’ll never know who’ll be there to help you when you’re in need.
8. Don’t forget to set realistic goals
Moving out on your own might come with its own interval sets of anxiety about the future, regrets and a whole lot of quarter life crises. What helped me get through my overthinking or need to constantly give up is to set goals (realistic and achievable ones). This helps in putting my over thinking thoughts into paper and unscrambling them into a set plan for the future.
9. When you don’t have any source of motivation, be your own cheerleader
Motivation has always been my biggest struggle, but I learnt that sometimes to continually progress you need to keep yourself motivated or everything you’ve worked for will come to a waste. One quote I got from my friend is that
“motivation is overrated, you can’t be motivated 24/7. Motivation is what makes you start, discipline is what takes you to the finish line”,
so remember that you can’t rely on external sources for motivation all the time. Sometimes the motivation and discipline you need comes from yourself.
10. Gratitude
Through it all, the biggest lesson I got would be gratitude, to be thankful of all the opportunities I faced, because it got me to where I am and who I am today, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All in all, moving out on your own would be a worth while experience that you’d have to experience eventually. Your 20s hits the soft spot of being mature enough to do it, but not wise enough to not learn anything new along the way. So if you have the chance to move out on your own, and if you’re on the fence in doing so, I say take that risk girl! and good luck.
