| Discipline, Commitment & Leadership |
I wasn’t planning on writing tonight but I
had a lot of things in my head so here goes nothing. Earlier today, I had the
opportunity to sneak into the “How to be a good reader and a good writer”
talk and one of the speakers, YBHG Datuk Dr. Mohd Daud Bakar (the President of
IIUM) shared his writing process. He said that he makes sure he writes
1500-2000 words per day and with that, he manages to finish writing a book in about
3 months. (How many of us can’t even finish reading a book in 3 months?)
And while he is waiting for a book to get proofread, he will start on a new
book. Yall, that’s mad discipline. Do you know how much I have to convince
myself to do my assignments with less words than that? And how long it takes me
to finish an essay?
While walking back to class with my
lecturer, we were talking about how disciplined he is, she said to me, “that’s
what previous scholars did. After they read something, they think about it and
come out with something new and write about it. That’s how we manage to get ilm’
from them today. Imagine if they didn’t do that, if they didn’t write. You guys,
teenagers, you should also try to write something.” And I said to her that some
of us are afraid of writing because we don’t think we are good enough to which
she said “You can write things that are about teenagers, things you can relate
to.”
Um, terdiam kejap.
Cause I always wanted to write something
that is bigger than me, deeper than what I can comprehend, like those works
that I admire. But I am not that. Yet. I have to understand my own limits and
set realistic expectations for myself because then I won’t be disappointed by
my own failures. Here’s the thing; realistic expectation is not me underestimating
myself, but challenging myself in a controlled way. I am a teen, it makes sense
for me to write cringey-teenage shit. And my writings will be bigger and deeper
when I get more mature. It’s as simple as that.
Going back to discipline, in order to grow
as a writer, I need to keep writing. “You become a writer by writing,” (Atwood,
2019). Normally, as soon as I finish writing something, I immediately see my
mistakes and aspects of it I can improve on. Things I wouldn’t have noticed if
I didn’t write at all for the fear of getting it wrong. Nobody gets it right at
the first try, so why put that pressure on myself?
Speaking of learning through mistakes, I
learned about one of my biggest flaws as a person through theatre. I purposefully
didn’t write about theatre in my last post because I thought I’d make a separate
entry for it. A lot happened in my three weeks of being involved in 100
Hari. But I’ll spare you the details and go straight to the point.
First lesson, not everyone is as committed
to something as I am. You guys already know I love theatre and I enjoy handling
props so me giving as much of myself as I could to theatre was basically expected.
To add to that, I was suddenly asked by the former head of props to replace her.
Yall. I was not ready. But I’ll be honest and say that a part of me was excited
and my ego told me I could handle it.
Eh.
I was okay with the workload at first (oh I
was naïve) but I didn’t know if I could handle the people. Correction, I don’t
know how to handle people. Period. So that was my main concern and in some
ways, I was right. I got frustrated when they got tired faster than I did when
I had been moving from one building to another. I got frustrated when they skipped
trainings to go to discussions because I tried my best to finish my work and
had discussions before night time. I got frustrated when they talked about
having to use their money first to buy things because I was paying for at least
80% of everything.
I got frustrated because I was expecting
them to show the exact same amount of commitment as I was. I didn’t understand
and refused to understand that I was the one who was committed to this
shit. They might not feel the same way. And that wasn’t something I could
change.
For the record, I’m not trying to crap on my teammates now. They did great.
Honestly, I have no words to say how proud I am of everyone despite every
little mishap that happened because of my own flaw. It’s worth pointing out what
I wrote was purely what came through my head in moments of anger, that I
was being biased and egotistical towards myself. They weren't what exactly happened.
So, my point was, I have to learn to
understand that not everyone is on the same boat as I am. I have to understand
that sometimes I can’t understand people and that’s just that. It is what it
is. What hurt me was not the people, it was the expectations I put on them that
I based on myself.
Second lesson was that I am a bad leader.
For many different reasons but one that is closely related to 100 Hari is the
fact that I think too much but act too little. The former head of props gave me
that advice way earlier and it’s somehow only sinking now. She said that I’d
been worrying about major things that I overlook the minor ones. And that
caused us to stay stagnant because I couldn’t make my move until I had things
calculated and, my God, I wasted so much time because of that. Wasted so much of
everybody else’s time having those useless meetings where we came to no answers
because despite me being a thinker, I could not decide on things. I’m-
Speechless ngan kebodohan sendiri sat.
That’s my biggest weakness a leader (aside
from me having little patience, being a pushy little bitch, strict and stressed
out, takleh rilek, oop- banyak pulakk), that I do very little for someone claiming
to be thinking a lot.
This is by no mean a self-deprecating post.
I may give off that impression but that is not the point. The point is to learn
from my own mistakes, especially ones that I am starting to become more aware of.
And for that, I sincerely apologize for
being an unpleasant teammate. Still tak puas hati boleh pm tepi, dun worry.
Well, enough ranting for today. See you in
the next one.
-Nik.
Nik Fateen. An introvert trying to find home in a foreign space.